Force possible for asylum seekers: Rudd

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has not ruled out the use of force to offload a group of
78 asylum seekers from an Australian Customs vessel to an Indonesian detention
centre.

But on Wednesday he moved to allay fears women and children in the group will be
held behind bars once handed over to Indonesian authorities on Bintan Island.
As the 78 asylum seekers, including five women and five children, spent their 10th
day aboard the Australian Customs vessel anchored off Bintan, Mr Rudd maintained the
group would be handed over to Indonesian authorities.
"The Australian government is working closely with Indonesian authorities to
facilitate the safe transfer of passengers to land," he told parliament.
However, it remains unclear exactly when the transfer of the asylum seekers to the
Tanjung Pinang detention facility will take place.
A spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor on Wednesday told AAP
"consultations are still under way".
The province's governor, as well as officials from Tanjung Pinang, who say the
detention centre has no running water and an unreliable electricity supply, are
unhappy with the deal between Canberra and Jakarta to take the group.
As the coalition continued to seek details of the deal and whether Mr Rudd was
personally involved, the prime minister would not rule out force being used to
remove the asylum seekers from the Oceanic Viking.
"We are dealing with a complex and difficult and challenging set of circumstances,"
Mr Rudd said.
"I have confidence that our men and women who are working in these professional
agencies will discharge their professional responsibilities with the greatest degree
of skill and tact and humanity that they can, but this is a very difficult
situation."
Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said Australian officials on the
Oceanic Viking were "probably going to be forced into a very ugly, nasty scenario"
by having to forcibly remove asylum seekers.
"This is a disaster on every front," Dr Stone told Sky News.
The prime minister is also under pressure over the prospect the women and children
among the group could be held behind bars at Tanjung Pinang, but said arrangements
had been made for alternative accommodation.
"I'm advised by the Indonesian authorities, or they've advised the government, that
women and children will be offered the option of staying in a house near the Tanjung
Pinang detention facility," he said.
A spokesman for the prime minister would not confirm whether a personal request had
been made to ensure children would not end up behind razor wire.
"We do not comment on the content, actual or suggested, of diplomatic
conversations," he told AAP.
"I'm not in a position to comment on diplomatic conversations."
The developments came as the 78 asylum seekers, some of who have reportedly
threatened to kill themselves if forced ashore at Bintan, on Wednesday spent their
10th day aboard the Oceanic Viking.
The Rudd government is also continuing to cop flack from unions over its treatment
of the asylum seekers, with Australian Workers' Union national secretary Paul Howes
saying it appeared to be based on race.
"We're talking about (78) people on a boat. When you compare that to 50,000 visa
overstayers, I reckon a lot of those visa overstayers are white,", he said.
"And I reckon there's not much concern about those visa overstayers because they are
white."
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull in parliament suggested Mr Rudd had been warned
by Indonesian authorities that the dismantling of the coalition's border protection
regime had prompted a surge in people smuggler activity and asylum seekers heading
to Australia.
Mr Rudd said he was unaware of any such advice.
"I can say to the leader of the opposition that President (Susilo Bambang) Yudhoyono
made no such comments to me at all," he said.
"What the president of Indonesia has said to me is that we all face a common people
smugglers challenge."