Indonesian foreign minister says Australia’s policy not yielding results because asylum seeker vessels are still arriving

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Indonesia’s foreign minister Marty Natalegawa has warned that reports Australia may have bundled additional asylum seekers into a wooden boat that was turned back to Indonesia is a “serious development”.

He said Australia’s policy was not yielding results because asylum seeker vessels were still arriving.



An asylum seeker boat has been turned back to Indonesia with three additional passengers on board, according to a statement issued by the Indonesian navy.



The wooden boat was found on a small island in eastern Indonesia. The crew told the Indonesian navy that two Australian vessels had been involved in the operation, and put an Indonesian and two Albanians on board who were not initially travelling on the boat.



At a conference in Bali, which Tony Abbott was due to attend before cancelling his trip to Indonesia, Natalegawa said: "If confirmed, obviously this is a very serious development.

"As I've said from the very beginning, we are risking a slippery slope."



"The policy of his government to push, unilaterally forcing asylum seekers – which is threatening and violating their human rights – it's not yielding [success] because such efforts are still being conducted," he added.



The crew of the ship said they had been been carrying asylum seekers from India and Nepal and entered Australian waters on 1 May.

The statement follows speculation that Tony Abbott cancelled a meeting this week with Indonesia’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, as a result of the turnback.

Fairfax Media has reported that the two Nepalese passengers may be asylum seekers who had arrived in a boat in February. The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said at the time that two asylum seekers had been transported to Christmas Island for medical treatment, but no further information has been revealed since then.

There have been a number of asylum seeker boats turned back to Indonesia since the Coalition took office but the federal government refuses to comment, citing operational security.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said: “If people were loaded onto this boat before it was towed back into the open ocean and left to run aground in Indonesia, the government will have some serious questions to answer.”

