PARLIAMENT RESUMES- WILL THEY SORT OUT THIS MESS AND SAVE LIVES?

Grave fears for 67 asylum seekers

Updated: 10:26, Tuesday August 14, 2012

There are grave fears that 67 asylum seekers may have drowned trying to reach Australia after leaving Indonesia in late June.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare says authorities became aware of the missing boat on the weekend.

‘The information that I have from Customs is they have checked a list of names they’ve received of people that were potentially on that boat and there’s no evidence those people have arrived in Australia,’ he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

‘So we now have very grave fears for the safety of those people.’

Mr Clare said the missing boat proved that ‘while politicians fight, people die’.

Labor has backed an expert panel on asylum seeker policy which recommends processing arrivals on Nauru and Papua New Guinea as was done under the previous coalition government’s Pacific Solution.

Legislation to allow offshore processing will be rushed into parliament on Tuesday.

Mr Clare used the latest missing boat as an example of why MPs and senators should back the bill.

‘We’ve got people missing at sea as we speak, this is no time for politics,’ he said.

‘We’ve got to pass laws to stop people dying.’

The expert panel suggested offshore processing combined with a doubling of Australia’s refugee intake could deter people from making dangerous sea voyages.