Opposition Labor leader Simon Crean said the incident in which a fishing boat carrying 54 asylum seekers evaded air and sea patrols highlighted the need for a dedicated coastguard.

"A coastguard would have been a much more effective deterrent than we have seen in recent days with ... boats turning up so close to Australian shores," Crean said.

"How did they get through? Because we haven't got an Australian cop on the beat," he said.

"We do need a coastguard to stop the drug runners, to stop the people smugglers, to protect the fisheries, to protect our country in terms of quarantine."

The fishing boat, carrying men, women and eight children all apparently from an extended family, was stopped Tuesday just kilometers (miles) off the northwestern coastal town of Port Hedland.

They almost become the first boatpeople to reach Australia since 2001.

The refugees were being transported Thursday by a navy frigate to an island detention facility 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the mainland to be held and questioned under Australia's tough immigration laws.

They were expected to arrive on Christmas Island late Friday.

The chief of mission in Jakarta for the International Organisation for Migration, Steve Cook, said Australian coastwatch authorities failed to detect the boat due to lack of resources.

He said Australia was given information about two possible routes the boat could have taken but mounted surveillance on only one due to a lack of resources.

"They didn't have the resources (to search both stretches of water)," he told The Australian newspaper.

The government also denied Thursday reports that another vessel was on its way, saying it had no intelligence to support the claim.

Officials said a review was underway to determine how the boat evaded security.

Australia's domestic defense resources have been depleted with hundreds of troops occupied by peacekeeping missions in East Timor and the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville.

Around 2,000 troops were deployed to join United States' and British forces in the recent war on Iraq and another 2,000 are now slated for deployment as part of a peacekeeping intervention force to the Solomon Islands.

The government also came under fire Thursday for taking the asylum seekers to Christmas Island instead of processing them at Port Headland.

"Under international law, they should have been taken to the nearest port for processing," said refugee advocate Marion Le.

In its so-called "Pacific solution" to illegal immigration, the government built immigration detention centers on Christmas Island and in two Pacific states, a practice condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations.

It also gave Christmas Island an extra-territorial status so boatpeople landing there could not appeal their cases to Australian courts.

Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock rejected the criticism, saying it was essential to keep "economic opportunists" who are not legitimate refugees from reaching Australian territory where they could launch lengthy legal bids to gain asylum.

WAR.WIRE