Hopes fading for more boat survivors

Hopes are fading for scores of asylum seekers still missing after their boat capsized en route to Australia.

Indonesian and Australian authorities have rescued 109 people, including a 13-year-old boy, but have also pulled three bodies from the water, while about 90 people are unaccounted for.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare says surveillance aircraft over the search and rescue area have spotted more bodies but no more survivors.

"I think we need to brace ourselves for more bad news," Mr Clare told Sky News on Friday afternoon.

He said it was still possible that rescuers would find more survivors but he admitted the situation was becoming "increasingly grim" as sea conditions deteriorated.

The overcrowded boat capsized about halfway between the Indonesian island of Java and Christmas Island on Thursday afternoon. The survivors have been transported to Christmas Island.

Two of them are injured, one critically. HMAS Larrakia and several merchant vessels are continuing the search for survivors while HMAS Wollongong and more merchant vessels are en route.

Mr Clare revealed that the boat's crew first made a distress call to Australian authorities on Tuesday night and made another early on Wednesday morning.

Australian officials advised them to turn around and head back to Indonesia, before telling Indonesian authorities of the boat's location.

A Customs and Border Protection surveillance plane spotted the boat on Wednesday afternoon but reported no visual signs of distress. Mr Clare dismissed suggestions that Australian authorities could have done more sooner. "I'm not going to second-guess today the action they have taken other than to say it looks like they took proactive steps," he said.

Nonetheless, a full investigation into the incident would be undertaken, he said.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has emphasised that the vessel was in Indonesia's search and rescue zone "at all times".

Asylum-seeker policy has been a hot political issue, with the government and opposition both blaming each other for an increase in boats since talks aimed at finding a bipartisan solution collapsed in January.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Friday that this was not the time to reignite the debate.

"There'll be time enough in the days and weeks ahead to talk about what policy lessons might be drawn from it," Mr Abbott told reporters.

But the Refugee Action Coalition's Ian Rintoul said more timely action by Australian authorities might have averted the disaster.

The Australian Greens said the disaster was an "awful tragedy" and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it underlined the dangers of people-smuggling boat journeys.

The UN's refugee agency said this also reinforced the need for renewed international cooperation to reduce the need for such perilous journeys.

"The UNHCR calls on Australia and countries in the region to redouble their efforts to provide safer and more secure options for people to find protection other than through these dangerous and exploitative boat journeys," it said in a statement.

In December 2010, more than 50 asylum seekers died when a boat known as SIEV 221 crashed against rocks off Christmas Island. And last December as many as 200 people drowned when an overloaded boat sank off the coast of East Java on its way to Australia.