Refugees die after explosion on boat

John Howard. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Emergency medical teams were last night preparing to receive severely burned asylum seekers flown to Australia after their boat was apparently set alight in the Indian Ocean.

Three people have been confirmed dead, two were missing, and dozens more injured in a tragedy that has re-ignited debate over the nation's ability to block a fleet of boats attempting to smuggle people from Indonesia.

Six boats have been intercepted this year - four in the past few weeks - with about 400 people taken to Australia's high-security detention centre on Christmas Island for processing since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last year relaxed the harsh regime maintained by the former conservative Government.

The burning and sinking of the latest boat as it was under tow by a Navy patrol vessel came as Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned a conference in Bali people-smugglers were returning in more sophisticated operations.

"We know the people-smugglers themselves are much more adept and have better resources, access to better financing, better equipment, and have become much better at avoiding detection and disruption," he said.

"So the challenge for better co-operation [with Asian nations] is there."

Yesterday's tragedy gave new impetus to a growing political debate.

The wooden, diesel-powered boat with 49 people aboard was intercepted on Wednesday by the Navy near Ashmore Reef, about 600km from the northwest Australian town of Broome, and placed under tow. A small number of Australian sailors were transferred to the boat.

Fire broke out in the engine room at about 6.30am, causing an explosion that killed three, seriously injured at least seven, and hurt many more.

Australian personnel are understood to have suffered only minor injuries.

Western Australian Police Assistant Commissioner John McRoberts said two people were missing, and that the Navy would continue to search for them "until they are found or there is no prospect of finding them".

WA Premier Colin Barnett said fuel had been deliberately poured on to the boat: "It is understood the refugees on the boat spread petrol and that ignited, causing the explosion," he said.

The asylum seekers, believed to be from Afghanistan, were rescued from the blazing wreck and transferred to two Armidale Navy patrol vessels, Albany and Childers, part of the blockade against people-smugglers.

The force, known as Operation Resolute, was strengthened by former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard as the front line of a policy that eventually embraced the now-defunct "Pacific solution" of detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and an uncompromising detention policy on mainland Australia.

Details were unclear last night, but it was believed injured victims were to be flown to a World War II airstrip in remote northern WA, and transferred to hospitals elsewhere.

Hospitals in Darwin, Perth and Broome were on alert, and a Northern Territory Emergency Response Operations Centre team was flying to join other doctors and Royal Flying Doctor Service units at the rarely-used Truscott air base.

The Government has conceded that the global economic crisis and other, deeper, pressures are likely to encourage more boatloads of asylum seekers to attempt the dangerous crossing to Australia.

But Canberra has been careful not to criticise Indonesia's failure to introduce new laws against people-smuggling that would allow it to crack down on illegal sailings, a measure likely to be delayed by recent elections.

The Government has come under renewed fire for its policies, with the Opposition claiming it has put more lives at risk.

"You can't slash funds, you can't take your eye off the ball, you can't announce a softer policy and then expect people not to lose their lives through people-smuggling efforts," Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said.

But Amnesty International said any increase in the number of boatpeople seeking asylum in Australia was part of a wider global trend and not a result of changed Government policy.