No asylum seeker who comes by boat will ever be resettled in Australia, under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's dramatic and ''hardline'' rewrite of refugee laws.

They will instead be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and, if found to be refugees, will be resettled in the island nation.

In the strongest line a modern Labor prime minister has yet taken against asylum seekers, Mr Rudd said: ''As of today, asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia.''

Declining to say how much the initiative would cost, Mr Rudd said it ''will not be inexpensive''. But he said in time the measures would be ''budget neutral'', with current record arrivals - numbering 15,610 this year - placing a heavy burden on the budget.