New tactics fail to slow asylum boats

The Gillard Government's tough approach to asylum seekers is doing nothing to slow the number of boats arriving and may be encouraging more women and children to board rickety vessels for Australia, Labor and Opposition MPs have warned.

A report from the parliamentary joint committee on human rights - which is made up of an equal number of Labor and coalition members - says the detention camp on Manus Island is unfit for children and demands that all minors at the facility be brought to Australia immediately.

The findings came as the Prime Minister announced she would travel to Jakarta early next month in a last-ditch effort to encourage Indonesia to do more stop the flow of asylum boats.

The human rights committee, chaired by Labor MP Harry Jenkins, noted there were record numbers of asylum boats coming to Australia despite the introduction of the Government's so-called "no advantage" approach for boat arrivals.

Introduced last year, the no advantage principle is supposed to mean recently arrived boat people are treated just as they would be if they applied for protection in Indonesia - meaning their claim is often delayed indefinitely.

"The continued high rate of arrivals raises doubts about the effectiveness of the newest policies to achieve a reduction in the number of people travelling by sea (and therefore at great personal risk) to seek Australia's protection," the report said.

The committee said the no disadvantage principle appeared to be "vague and ill-defined" and had gone further than originally intended.

"The Government has been unable to provide any details as to how the 'no advantage' policy will operate in practice," the report said.

It warned the conditions at the Australian-run camp on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island were "unfit for children and vulnerable individuals" and fell short of internationally mandated standards for holding of asylum seekers.

There are 26 children being held on Manus Island.

But the report also argued for a sense of perspective on the asylum issue, noting that although 25,000 asylum seekers were forecast to arrive in Australia by boat in 2012-13, that number was only one per cent of the global refugee population.

A separate report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees released yesterday said Australia hosted just 0.3 per cent of the world's refugees by the end of last year.

Of the 88,600 refugees resettled last year, Australia took 5900. The US resettled the most refugees of any country at 66,300.