Boatpeople may not have been heading to NZ

Boatpeople apprehended in Indonesian waters may have waved pro-New Zealand flags and signs to put political pressure on the New Zealand Government to accept them, Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman says.

However, New Zealand was "unlikely" to have been their actual destination, he said.

A boat carrying 88 Sri Lankans was detained in Indonesia on Saturday. Those on board were photographed waving New Zealand flags and holding signs saying their future was in New Zealand.

The Government has said they would not be welcome here.

"In terms of the actual plans that they had it doesn't appear they weren't actually intending to come here in the first place," Dr Coleman said.

"If you look at where these boats have gone in the past they've gone to a range of destinations, Canada's pretty popular as is Australia."

There were no maps on board to navigate to New Zealand and Dr Coleman said he also had other information that indicated they may not have been heading here.

Flags and signs may have been a move to put pressure on New Zealand to accept the group should they be apprehended on the high seas.

"If you are standing on a boat with a sign saying `we want to go to New Zealand', inviting intervention, that's a form of pressure that's being created for sure... it's pretty clear they've got those signs out for a reason and that's open to speculation," Dr Coleman said.

Mr Key thought the message the asylum seekers were not welcome was not harsh. He said he did not want to open a floodgate.

"If New Zealand doesn't have strong policy in this area then what it ends up doing, in my view, is sending completely the wrong message, which is that we welcome people who are going to jump the queue, that we want people to put their lives at risk," Mr Key said.

"These people smugglers are criminals. They are breaking the laws, they're getting a lot of money for this business and they don't really care about the outcomes of those people that are on the boat."

Mr Key said legislation around asylum seekers had been reviewed, and changes could be made to laws if required.

"We've upgraded our operating manual, if you like, in the way that we would deal with a mass migration issue if it came to New Zealand and we're confident that we understand our legal position."

New Zealand's current refugee quota of 750 was about right, Mr Key said.

Labour leader Phil Goff said Mr Key was overstating the threat of boatpeople flooding to New Zealand.

"A ship might get down to New Zealand conceivably, but it is not a huge and overwhelming threat to New Zealand. It's Australia that people are targeting."

Mr Key's comment that the asylum seekers were not welcome showed "a lack of human feeling of the suffering of the individuals concerned", Mr Goff said.

However, he agreed that New Zealand could not encourage boatpeople.

Green Party spokesman Keith Locke also accused Mr Key of lacking compassion and of violating the 1951 Refugee Convention by rejecting asylum seekers before establishing if they had a valid case.

"John Key is tarnishing New Zealand's reputation as a compassionate country, established when we took in Afghan asylum seekers from the Tampa back in 2001," he said.

New Zealand has a quota of 750 refugees a year and 527 were accepted in the 2010-11 year. The Labour Department said the United Nations agreed the smaller number was appropriate given demands on housing stock and other settlement services as a result of the Christchurch earthquake.

- NZPA