Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Clearly the opposition have decided to persist in this endeavour to try and take this debate about asylum seekers in Australia to new depths. As I said in answer to the primary question from the senator, we obviously liaise with Indonesia, Malaysia and other authorities when reports of drownings or reports of boats in distress are received. We work with those authorities to try and ensure the rescue of those boats or to try and determine the accuracy of information that is provided. We have followed up on the question of the Australian article which said 12 asylum seekers had been reported to have drowned. The minister for customs and border protection, Mr O’Connor, had his officials following that up. The Indonesian advice, as I understand it at this stage, is that they had no record of that particular incident, but there is reporting that two men may have drowned in an incident off—  (Time expired)