There is no end in sight to a stand-off between authorities and asylum-seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking with the Rudd Government unable to say when the group will be off-loaded.
As the Tamil asylum-seekers, who have fled Sri Lanka, remained in limbo, the Sri Lankan high commissioner to Australia warned the group represented a security threat.
Meanwhile, the navy intercepted another boat in Australian waters about 4.20pm yesterday.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said HMAS Ararat would take the 34 passengers and four crew on board to Christmas Island, where they would undergo security, identity and health checks.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Australian and Indonesian governments had great patience in dealing with the 78 Tamils, who are refusing to leave the vessel in Indonesia. Mr Rudd has not ruled out using cash payments to entice them to disembark. The ship, which is running out of food and drinking water, will be resupplied on Sunday.
The asylum-seekers were rescued almost two weeks ago by an Australian navy vessel in Indonesia's search and rescue zone, before being transferred to the Oceanic Viking, an Australian Customs vessel, which remains anchored 10 nautical miles off Bintan Island.
''The foreign affairs minister of Indonesia said last night of Indonesia, 'Indonesia has great patience in handling this matter.' So does Australia,'' Mr Rudd told Parliament yesterday.
''That is the basis upon which the vessel's presence in the port will be considered in the future.''
The Opposition has raised the prospect of cash payments being made to entice the group off the Oceanic Viking, but Mr Rudd said that had not been considered.
''My advice is that is not the case,'' he said. However, he did not rule out the option in the future.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans hit back at Opposition questions about the cost of the rescue. ''The alternative cost was the death of 78 people,'' he said in the Senate.
Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone maintained the ''Indonesia solution'' was a failure.
''I think what we're going to see is boats from Sri Lanka simply skirting around Indonesia's territorial waters and its search and rescue zone.
''It never was a solution, it was always a blind prayer hoping Indonesia would take the problem off the hands of Australia.''
The comments came amid a warning from the Sri Lankan high commissioner, Senaka Walgampaya, that the Tamil asylum-seekers ''pose a threat to the peace and security of Australia''.
There are more than 250,000 people in camps in Sri Lanka as a result of a 20-year civil war that ended earlier this year. Mr Walgampaya rejected claims Tamils in Sri Lanka were being persecuted.
But the spokesman for a group of 251 Tamil asylum-seekers still moored at Merak in Indonesia after being intercepted by the Indonesian navy on their way to Australia, Alex, said the world did not know the truth about what was happening in Sri Lanka. The group remains holed up on the Jaya Lestari 5, and is also refusing to disembark. ''People in these camps are being murdered every single day, raped, children are going missing.''
AAP
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