Customs has denied federal opposition claims its officers are contracting tuberculosis from a "tsunami" of asylum seekers.
Coalition customs spokesman Michael Keenan says Labor's failure to cut the number of boats arriving off the west coast had left officers exposed to the potentially fatal disease. "You prevent it from happening by stopping the boats coming in the first place," Mr Keenan told reporters in Perth on Tuesday.
"It is not acceptable that our frontline Customs officers are contracting tuberculosis from illegal boat arrivals.
"This Labor government have put Customs officers lives on the line by allowing this surge of arrivals to spiral out of control," Mr Keenan said.
There had also been cases of typhoid, hepatitis and chicken pox detected in boat arrivals, he said.
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Customs responded by saying the claims were "misleading".
Six officers had tested positive to the "latent" strain of TB over the last three years, the agency said. "Latent Tuberculosis Infection is very different to active TB - it is non-infectious," Customs said in a statement.
Five of the officers have undergone a six-month course of antibiotics and the sixth officer is on the medicine.
The agency went on to lay out the protection it already offers staff working to intercept asylum boats.
Officers are all given a disease and vaccination guide, biannual chest x-rays and personal protective equipment including face masks.
