This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Australian border protection officials have handed 41 Sri Lankan nationals, including four Tamils, over to Sri Lankan authorities in a transfer at sea.

The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, confirmed the transfer after more than a week of speculation about the fate of two asylum seeker vessels and a statement by the UN refugee agency last week expressing its “profound concern”.

Morrison said a “suspected illegal entry vessel” was intercepted by Border Protection Command west of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in late June, and at no stage was the boat in distress and all persons aboard were safe and accounted for.

Forty-one “potential illegal maritime arrivals” were returned to Sri Lankan authorities on Sunday, he said in a statement issued on Monday morning.

“The 41 Sri Lankan nationals were transferred at sea, in mild sea conditions from a vessel assigned to Border Protection Command (BPC) to Sri Lankan authorities, just outside the Port of Batticaloa,” Morrison said.

The minister confirmed asylum claims were assessed via the controversial process of “enhanced screening”, which identified any person who may need to be referred to a further determination process and therefore transferred to Papua New Guinea or Nauru for offshore processing.

Refugee advocates have been highly critical of the rapid process and the UNHCR said individuals who sought asylum “must be properly and individually screened for protection needs, in a process which they understand and in which they are able to explain their needs” or risk “putting already vulnerable individuals at grave risk of danger”.

Morrison, who is due to visit Sri Lanka this week, defended the process.

“All persons intercepted and returned were subjected to an enhanced screening process, as also practiced by the previous government, to ensure compliance by Australia with our international obligations under relevant conventions,” he said.

Morrison said there was only one person whose claim had been deemed to need further assessment.

“In the single case where such a referral was recommended, the individual, a Sinhalese Sri Lankan national, voluntarily requested to depart the vessel with the other persons being transferred and returned to Sri Lanka,” he said.

“This transfer of 41 persons, including 37 Sinhalese and 4 Tamil Sri Lankan nationals, follows previous returns to Sri Lanka including 79 illegal maritime arrivals under Operation Sovereign Borders last year.”

Morrison's statement was silent on the fate of a second boat reported to be carrying up to 153 Tamil people.

In a reaffirmation of the government’s hardline asylum seeker policies, the minister said the Coalition would not “deal in half measures” and while it would “continue to act in accordance with our international obligations” it would not allow “people smugglers to try and exploit and manipulate Australia's support of these conventions”.

“Accordingly, the government will continue to reject the public and political advocacy of those who have sought to pressure the government into a change of policy. Their advocacy, though well intentioned, is naively doing the bidding of people smugglers who have been responsible for almost 1,200 deaths at sea,” Morrison said.

He issued the statement after a story about the transfer appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Monday.

Labor's Senate leader, Penny Wong, said the government had "confirmed some facts belatedly after dropping some facts to one newspaper".

Wong told the ABC the issues were serious and Australians expected their government to comply with its ethical and legal obligations "which are not to return people to the risk of persecution".

"I don't think on something as important as this it's good enough for the government simply to allow rumour to run, concerns to grow, and to simply drop a few lines into one newspaper and believe that accountability has been met," she said.

“The government has now confirmed the illegal transfer of over 40 asylum seekers”, the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“The government has handed these people over to danger without properly assessing their claims for protection.

“The minister must now be upfront about the fate of the 153 asylum seekers, including 37 children, who are still missing.”