A FEDERAL government decision to deny asylum seeker boat arrivals any right to settle in Australia is working to deter people from making the journey, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says.
Mr Morrison this week visited a government detention centre on the Pacific Island of Nauru, where he held talks with officials and inspected building work and delivered a direct message to detainees.
He told them people smugglers had ripped them off and that under the new coalition regime they would not be coming to Australia.
"I was pleased to learn while I was there that there are around 30 people who are already now in the process of looking to go back to where they come from," Mr Morrison told reporters in Sydney.
"Offshore processing, you know, is working when people decide to go home."
In the week since October 4, only one asylum seeker boat had arrived in Australian waters.
Operation Sovereign Borders Acting Commander, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, said the boat was intercepted on Thursday off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
The number of people on board the boat, which likely came from Sri Lanka, was not released because they were still being processed at Christmas Island.
"But I do want to emphasise that the people who came to Australia on board this boat by now already understand that they will not be settled in Australia," Air Marshal Binskin said on Friday.
For the October 4-11 reporting period, a total of 111 people were transferred to the offshore processing centres on Nauru.
Since the new government's Operation Sovereign Borders began three weeks ago, a total of 215 arrivals have been transferred to the centres, including Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.
As of Friday, there were 1059 detainees on Manus, 800 on Nauru and 2176 on Christmas Island.
The government also emphasised further moves to tackle people smuggling.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus said there had been 17 "disruption" operations in Indonesia in the past three weeks, result in the arrest of five crewmen and three facilitators.
It's estimated this has stopped more than 550 people from getting on rickety boats to Australia.
Meanwhile, the High Court handed the government a victory by upholding the validity of mandatory prison terms for convicted people smugglers.
The case, brought by an Indonesian crew member from a boat which transported 52 asylum seekers to Australia in 2010, was seen as a test case for mandatory sentencing.
Aged 19 and described as a simple fisherman recruited just to steer the vessel, crewman Bonan Darius Magaming was jailed for five years with a non-parole period of three years under mandatory sentencing laws.
"If people seek to break those laws than they can expect to suffer the consequences of those penalties," Mr Morrison said.
Human Rights Law Centre spokesman Daniel Webb said international human rights law required that the punishment fit the crime.
"Mandatory minimum sentences for young cooks and deckhands from impoverished fishing villages won't stop people smuggling. These kids are not the ringleaders," he said.
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