Opposition leader says there is an immigration 'national emergency' after four people drowned when boat sank

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Tony Abbott has challenged Kevin Rudd to recall parliament over the "national emergency" of asylum seekers, after four people drowned in the sinking of a vessel trying to reach Christmas Island.

The opposition leader said the prime minister had to admit he was wrong to dismantle John Howard's asylum seeker policies in 2008.

"You caused this problem. This is a national emergency and it's got to be addressed now," he said in Mackay, Queensland on Wednesday.

The four deaths come just days after the body of a boy less than one year old was pulled from the water and eight people remain missing, presumed dead, after an asylum seeker boat sunk 87 nautical miles off the coast of Christmas Island on Friday night.

A new search and rescue operation was underway off Christmas Island on Wednesday evening after a boat carrying 80 people issued a distress call.

The home affairs minister, Jason Clare, told a press conference on Wednesday morning the issue of asylum seekers is "a wretchedly difficult area and it's been poisoned by politics".

Clare said politicians had been fighting about it for 10 years and Australians were "sick of it". "If we're going to fix this god-awful problem then we need to work together. That's the solution," he said.

Navy search and rescue services pulled 144 people from the water on Tuesday night and recovered the bodies of two women in their late 20s or early 30s, a man in his 20s and another man in his 30s.

Clare told reporters the boat was being escorted to Christmas Island by navy boats when it capsized. The passengers are from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, and include men, women and possibly up to 19 children including infants.

HMAS Albany had been tracking the vessel, which appeared to be an Indonesian inter-island cargo boat – since Monday night after it was spotted by an RAAF aircraft, Clare said.

Dangerously rough seas of around two metres, increasing to four metres at times, had prevented navy personnel from boarding, despite several attempts to do so.

"Any boarding event that you conduct at night, particularly in the weather conditions that were experienced, is very dangerous," said rear admiral David Johnston from Border Command.

While under escort to Christmas Island the boat – which the HMAS Albany had reported appeared seaworthy with a functioning bilge pump and one of its two engines – began to lean to one side and passengers began jumping into the water. Shortly after the vessel rolled and capsized, 67 nautical miles off the coast.

It is not known what caused the boat to lean and capsize.

An RAAF P3-Orion maritime patrol aircraft deployed life rafts as HMAS Warramunga's crew rescued 76 people from the water, and the Albany's rescued 68. A search for any missing persons was suspended at 9.38pm on Tuesday night.

Johnston said the rescue effort in those conditions by the navy personnel was "extraordinary". "My praise for them is unlimited because of what they've achieved," he said.

Johnston said dealing with deaths was "particularly difficult" for rescuers.

"It is a dreadful feeling in the stomach when we hear that a vessel has capsized or is in some difficulty," he said. "We've got a job to do and we do it to the best of our ability. The politics and the policy are not my issue."

Christmas Island administrator Jon Stanhope told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning that while the deaths are tragic, he was not particularly surprised that another boat had capsized. He said the mortuary facilities on the island had increased from a capacity of five bodies to 50, "and that is a statement within itself".

The former ACT chief minister also called for a greater level of humanity towards asylum seekers.

"I sometimes wish that among some of the debate and some of the commentary and some of the discourse, that each of us would look at asylum seekers not as a bulk, an anonymous grouping, but as individual human beings that have hopes and aspirations and dreams and feel the same pain and suffer the same grief as each of us," he said.