Migrant influx strains resources

CANBERRA - Australia is gearing up for a continuing flood of asylum seekers which threatens to overwhelm detention facilities on Christmas Island and may force boat people to be taken to the mainland for the first time since former conservative Prime Minister John Howard's "Pacific solution".

Amid a growing political storm, the Government is already sending demountable homes and extra camp bunks to house new arrivals on the remote Indian Ocean outpost, and is preparing another camp near Darwin.

Six more boats are reported to be either on the way or preparing to leave Indonesia, despite efforts by Jakarta to block their departure and increased Australian Navy and customs patrols.

The two countries are sharing intelligence - regional security and police co-operation was boosted by an additional A$625 million ($740 million) in Australia's May Budget - and a boat carrying about 250 asylum seekers was turned back by Indonesia on Sunday after personal intervention by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The boat is still packed with Sri Lankans in West Java, where officials removed stoves and fuel after threats by desperate asylum seekers to blow themselves up.

More than 1800 asylum seekers have been detained since September last year after their boats were intercepted in Australian waters, almost 700 of them in the past six weeks.

About 990 remain in detention on Christmas Island, with the 56 taken from the most recent interception on Tuesday pushing the facilities close to their capacity of 1200.

Most are from Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka.

The flood was renewed last year after it had been slowed to a trickle by draconian laws introduced by the Howard Government, including "Pacific solution" camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and the new maximum security Baxter centre near Port Augusta in South Australia.

Rudd relaxed some of the harshest measures, shut down Baxter and the Nauru and PNG camps in a policy now under heavy fire from the Opposition.

Although it did not oppose the abolition of the "Pacific solution" - in which detainees were held offshore to prevent access to Australia's legal system - the Opposition now claims the Government has opened the floodgates by relaxing laws.

Rudd claims the renewed flood of boat people has been triggered by "huge push factors", such as the war in Afghanistan, Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka and continued instability in the Middle East.

Denying any relationship between his policies and the renewed flood, Rudd said more than 80 attempts to sail to Australia had either been prevented or intercepted since Labor came to power two years ago.

Rudd also promised to take the "harshest and hardest" measures against people smugglers, whom he described as vermin.

So far, his Government has laid charges against 44 alleged people smugglers, with further prosecutions being prepared in both Australia and Indonesia.

Australian officials recently confirmed the widespread involvement of organised crime in the pipeline attempting to funnel asylum seekers into the country.

But Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, bolstered by a Lowy Institute for International Policy Poll showing that 75 per cent of Australia are worried by rising numbers of boat people, described Rudd's claims as "humbug".