PM grilled over smuggler payment

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott arrives at Auckland Airport. Photo / Dean Purcell

Indonesia investigates allegation that Australian patrol paid people traffickers to turn back.

Australia is at risk of a fresh diplomatic spat with northern neighbour Indonesia amid claims people smugglers were paid to turn back a boat carrying asylum-seekers towards the country's waters.

Indonesian authorities say they are investigating an Australian Broadcasting Corp report that a boat with 65 asylum-seekers on board was intercepted last week off Indonesia's West Papua by an Australian border patrol. The crew were paid A$5000 ($5525) each to turn around, the report said, citing an Indonesian police chief.

Asked yesterday if the report was true, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters the Government wouldn't comment on "operational matters" related to people smuggling, as it would give information to Australia's enemies.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir didn't respond to a message to his mobile phone seeking comment. Australia's foreign and immigration ministers have denied that the country has paid people-smugglers, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The alleged incident could create new tensions between Australia and a major Southeast Asian trading partner. Abbott in April recalled his ambassador to Jakarta after Indonesia executed two Australians for drug offences, though the envoy recently returned. The two countries have a long history of periodic friction.

Abbott won power in September 2013 vowing to "stop the boats" after a surge in asylum-seekers trying to travel to Australia by sea in often rickety crafts operated by people- smugglers from Indonesia. Some of them drowned in the process.

"We've used a whole range of measures to stop the boats because that's what the Australian people elected us to do," Abbott said yesterday in Melbourne. "We will do whatever we reasonably can, consistent with the principles of a decent and humane society, to ensure that the boats stay stopped."

A recent crackdown on human trafficking rings by authorities in Thailand has left thousands of Bangladeshi and ethnic Rohingya asylum-seekers from Burma stranded at sea, risking a regional humanitarian crisis as governments debate how to address the issue.

While Abbott says his government's stance is humanitarian as it has reduced asylum-seeker drownings, which reached almost 1200 under the previous Labor government, Indonesia says the policy is flawed.

If Australia did indeed pay smugglers to turn around the boat it amounted to "endangering life", the Indonesian foreign ministry's Nasir said, according to the ABC. "They were in the middle of the sea, but were pushed back."

New counter-terrorism laws

Attorney-General George Brandis has announced plans to introduce further counter-terror legislation, believed to include a refining of laws around control orders, in the wake of a string of counter-terror operations in the past 10 months.

Speaking at a summit in Sydney on countering violent extremism, Senator Brandis said one of the biggest challenges faced by nations fighting extremism was terrorist propaganda spread online and via social media.

"I'm announcing ... that the Government will introduce further legislation. That legislation will take into account lessons learned from recent legislative amendments and counter-terrorism operations."

The Government will unveil details of the plan in coming weeks, with legislation expected later this year.

- AAP