Government and Customs officials are now saying a boatload of six Papuans believed to have landed in Australia instead landed in Papua New Guinea.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson, have both made announcements on the subject.
Customs spokesman Simon Latimer says the media organisation that triggered a search for the group later alerted Customs they were outside Australia.
"Effectively, we were conducting a search and checking possible landing places for about 24 hours.
"On Wednesday afternoon, we received further information that the family of Papuans had, in fact, not entered Australian waters but were in Papua New Guinea.
"Based upon that, based upon the fact that our search of some possible landing sites had turned up no evidence, we decided to scale down our operations in response to this specific incident."
Reports of their arrival had gained close attention after Australia recently gave 42 others from the troubled Indonesian province temporary protection visas.
Indonesia has withdrawn its ambassador to Canberra over the matter.