Australian Navy has intercepted first two boats of 2012 carrying more than 50 asylum seekers, Immigration Department confirmed on Wednesday.

HMAS Albany intercepted one vessel carrying 35 passengers and two crews southwest of Ashmore Islands of Western Australia on Monday afternoon. Australian Custom Vessel Botany Bay later intercepted and assisted another boat carrying 16 passengers and one crew north of the Tiwi Islands.

The interception came following Indonesian official's announcement of a plan to relax visa restrictions for three major asylum seeker source countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which means people who may want to seek asylum in Australia will be able to more easily enter Indonesia by boat.

While the new policy could potentially trigger a fresh wave of asylum-seeker traffic from Indonesia to Australia, there were reports that Australian government has immediately entered into talks with Opposition, aiming to find a bipartisan agreement on resurrecting offshore processing to stem the flow of boats.

Opposition acting immigration spokesman Michael Keenan said the latest arrivals showed 2012 would be "business-as-usual" for people smugglers.

"(Prime Minister) Julia Gillard's first priority for 2012 should be to repair the damage that the Labour Party has done since coming to office to Australia's system of border protection, " Keenan said in a statement.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott also blamed federal government dysfunction for a change in Indonesian immigration policy that could boost the number of asylum seeker boats heading to Australia.

"The problem with border protection more generally is not the Indonesian government, it's the Australian government," Abbott said in a statement.

"And if as I suspect there was none or very little consultation you've got to wonder what the prime minister and the foreign minister has been doing."

"Frankly if we had a more functional government, where the prime minister and foreign minister were capable of having a conversation, we wouldn't have the difficulties that we do with the Indonesians on this issue," he added.

He urged the government to "get cracking" on reopening the Nauru detention center, which was closed after the 2007 election won by Labor.

Meanwhile, West Australian state Premier Colin Barnett said asylum seekers were an ongoing issue and called for a consistent and bipartisan approach to asylum seekers arriving in boats.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)