Australia is working "constructively" with Indonesia to stop boatloads of asylum-seekers travelling by sea, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says after another vessel sank and more than 22 drowned.
Cormann said the tragedy highlighted the need to stop vessels trying to reach Australia, something the government is attempting to do via a policy that will see boats turned around if safe to do so.
"It is always terribly distressing when people die at sea in these sort of circumstances," he told Sky News.
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"Now we do have Operation Sovereign Borders under way, we are working very constructively with the Indonesian government and it's very important our efforts with the Indonesian government are going to be successful."
Abbott has made no comment about the latest tragedy, and under his government's new media policy, the public will only be kept informed of operations at weekly briefings, the next of which is due on Monday.
The incident comes amid a ramping up in tensions between Canberra and Jakarta over the asylum-seeker issue, and days ahead of talks in Jakarta between Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Separate to the sinking, Australian authorities have picked up at least one other group of asylum-seekers and returned them to Indonesia.
The boat carrying 40 men and four children made a distress call Thursday, and because Indonesian authorities were unable to reach the vessel quickly, Australians were tasked with the rescue.
The asylum-seekers, who were from Pakistan, Iran and Myanmar, and two Indonesian crew, were then taken close to Indonesia and transferred to an Indonesian vessel.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said an Australian Customs ship had also rescued a second boatload of 31 asylum-seekers and returned them to Indonesia.
Interim opposition leader Chris Bowen called on the government to release information about the latest operations.
"The government has previously said that when there was a tragedy or a significant event at sea, then they would provide briefings," Bowen said.
"I would call on the government... to provide those briefings to the Australian people today."
DEATH TOLL EXPECTED TO RISE
Indonesian authorities say that at least 21 people, including seven children, drowned when a boat carrying about 80 passengers sank in rough seas on Friday off the coast of Java.
Strong waves had prevented Indonesian rescuers from resuming their search for survivors early Saturday morning but three more people were eventually rescued to take the number of confirmed survivors to 28.
One of the passengers, a Lebanese man, had reportedly lost his pregnant wife and eight children in the disaster.
It was initially thought that the boat was carrying about 120 people.
It's believed to be the first fatal attempted asylum-seeker crossing under the coalition government, which promised that it would stop boats reaching Australia after it won this month's federal election.
The sinking comes after another group of 44 asylum seekers were rescued by an Australian navy vessel in the Sunda Strait on Thursday.
The boat that sank on Friday had departed from the fishing village of Pelabuhan Ratu, in the Sukabumi regency, on the south coast of western Java.
It first got into trouble about 10 hours into its journey and efforts were made to return to Indonesia before it sank.
A police official from the district of Cianjur in Java said authorities were alerted to the incident after bodies were discovered floating in an estuary on Friday morning.
He said the boat had broken into several pieces.
A spokesman for the Indonesian search and rescue agency, BASARNAS, said his office was not advised of an incident involving an asylum-seeker boat until 3pm local time on Friday.
He said the Australian Maritime and Safety Authority had contacted BASARNAS about the boat.
One Lebanese man escaped from the sinking boat by swimming to an island - but he believes his eight children and pregnant wife were killed, an official in Lebanon told Agence France-Presse.
Hussein Khodr called people in his home village of Kabiit "and told them that the boat sank at dawn, when waves destabilised the vessel", said Ahmad Darwish, local government head in the northern Lebanese village.
Survivors said they were trying to get to Australia's Christmas Island, closer to Java than mainland Australia, and are the latest to cross the treacherous stretch of water that has claimed hundreds of asylum seekers' lives in recent years.
