Foreign Minister Bob Carr says people arriving in Australia recently by boat are not refugees fleeing persecution, but economic migrants.

"They're not people fleeing persecution. They're coming from majority religious or ethnic groups in the countries they're fleeing, they're coming here as economic migrants," Senator Carr told Lateline on June 26, 2013.

Two days later in Indonesia, Senator Carr was asked what evidence he had to support that assertion.

"I would need to get that out of our, out of the Immigration Department, but as I've looked at data about recent vessels, it's just been, it's been 100 per cent, it's been 100 per cent," he said.

The claim: Bob Carr says 100 per cent of recent boat arrivals are economic migrants, not refugees.

Bob Carr says 100 per cent of recent boat arrivals are economic migrants, not refugees. The verdict: Neither Senator Carr's office nor the Immigration Department has been able to produce evidence to support the claim.

"The point is, the evidence has shifted under our eyes. A few years ago you could say that most of the people had some case to make about fleeing persecution. Now that's changed."

Assessing Bob Carr's claims

Australia stopped processing new boat arrivals in August 2012.

Processing resumed on July 1, 2013. That long gap alone makes it difficult to assess Senator Carr's claims.

ABC Fact Check asked the Immigration Department and Senator Carr's office to provide the data or reports that the minister used to form his opinions, and for the evidence the minister relied on to make the claim that those arriving recently are economic migrants.

The department was unable to provide it, and Senator Carr's office told ABC Fact Check the evidence comes from confidential Cabinet documents.

But the minister did write an opinion article for The Sunday Telegraph on July 7 that contains selective data on recent arrivals.

Senator Carr wrote that of the last 135 boats to arrive in Australian waters, just two were not piloted by people smugglers.

He cited two boats carrying Sri Lankans that arrived in May 2013 and October 2012.

The May boat was carrying 71 people.

"Of 63 passengers subject to Australia's enhanced screening process, all were screened out and will be returned to Sri Lanka," he wrote.

The October boat was carrying 15 Sri Lankans, "all of whom were sent back," he wrote. "Most admitted coming here to work."

Processing people who arrive by boat

Arrivals undergo an initial assessment interview when the Immigration Department decides whether they are eligible to make a claim for refugee status.

Only if a person triggers the refugee process will he or she be eligible to claim refugee status.

If that claim is unsuccessful, then the applicant can apply to the Refugee Review Tribunal to overturn the decision.

The bulk of people arriving in Australia by boat come from Iran, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

In the 2011/12 financial year, 71 per cent of people arriving by boat were found to be refugees by the Immigration Department.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 23 minutes 45 seconds 23 m Watch Bob Carr's full interview on Lateline

Of those who appealed their refusal last financial year, almost 65 per cent were subsequently granted refugee status by the tribunal.

The Immigration Department's most recent quarterly data combining those assessed by the department and those dealt with by the tribunal shows that 90.5 per cent of people who arrived by boat were found to be refugees in the first three months of 2013.

The president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, said recently there was no evidence to support Senator Carr's claims because the Immigration Department suspended processing for almost a year between August 2012 and July 2013.

"When we were assessing asylum seeker claims [made before] August 13 last year, approximately 90 per cent of claims for refugee status were found to be valid," she told Lateline on July 1, 2013.

"They were assessed by the Australian processes genuinely to be refugees.

"Now that suggests that at least until the moment when the government stopped assessing claims, the genuineness of the overwhelming majority of them was very clear on the evidence.

"So I think that Senator Carr is making an assumption for which there's no evidence."

Not all of Senator Carr's colleagues agree with his comments either.

"It's not my view that 100 per cent of recent arrivals are economic refugees," Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said on Q&A on July 1, 2013.

The verdict

On the available evidence, Senator Carr's claim that 100 per cent of recent arrivals are economic migrants is unsubstantiated.

Neither his office, nor the department, has been able to produce any specific evidence to support the claim.