An Australian customs ship holding 78 asylum seekers off Indonesia should be sent to Sri Lanka, where its passengers are from, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says.
Australia has been trying for two weeks to persuade the group of ethnic Tamils to voluntarily disembark the Oceanic Viking and enter the Tanjung Pinang Detention Centre on the Indonesian island of Bintan.
But the group has refused, adamant they want to be taken to Australia even though they were rescued in international waters within Indonesia's search and rescue zone.
Senator Joyce said if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wanted to be tough on border protection, he should send the boat to Sri Lanka.
"If you want to show strength, if you want to be decisive... then send the Oceanic Viking to Colombo and you will have made a strong statement," he told the Nine Network on Sunday.
Senator Joyce said letting the asylum seekers be processed by Australian authorities on Christmas Island was a weak solution to the stand-off.
"That is in essence defeat. It means people have worked you out, they just hang about on the boat and in the end you will capitulate and you will land at Christmas Island," he said.
"If you land at Christmas Island, within due course you'll land in Australia, people just read that as you being weak."
Senator Joyce said there were a number of push and pull factors encouraging asylum seekers to Australia.
"People want to increase their economic condition in life - that is only natural" he said.
"But we do not have the capacity to have a flow of people into our nation that come by their own means and their own desires and not through a controlled process.
"If we are going to have people in detention from Sri Lanka, then how about we have them in detention in Sri Lanka."
Senator Joyce also suggested Mr Rudd talk to Sri Lankan authorities about establishing a "monitoring force" in the country, to help ensure the safety of Tamils displaced by the recent civil war there.
Environment Minister Peter Garrett called on Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to come up with his own border protection policy.
"It's up to Mr Turnbull to show where his actual policy instincts and where his values lie on this issue," he told Network Ten.
"We haven't heard from him on that at all."
Mr Garrett maintained Labor's line that the 78 asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking needed to disembark in Indonesia.
The South-East Asian nation on Friday gave Australia another week to resolve the impasse, warning it may not give another extension for the ship to stay in the area.
Mr Garrett was unfazed by the development.
"The diplomatic extension has been for one week but my own strong sense, and I think the government's view, would be that we would continue to work through these issues with our neighbours in Indonesia," he said.
Senator Joyce said letting the asylum seekers be processed by Australian authorities on Christmas Island was a weak solution to the stand-off.
"That is in essence defeat. It means people have worked you out, they just hang about on the boat and in the end you will capitulate and you will land at Christmas Island," he said.
"If you land at Christmas Island, within due course you'll land in Australia, people just read that as you being weak."
Senator Joyce said there were a number of push and pull factors encouraging asylum seekers to Australia.
"People want to increase their economic condition in life - that is only natural" he said.
"But we do not have the capacity to have a flow of people into our nation that come by their own means and their own desires and not through a controlled process.
"If we are going to have people in detention from Sri Lanka, then how about we have them in detention in Sri Lanka."
Senator Joyce also suggested Mr Rudd talk to Sri Lankan authorities about establishing a "monitoring force" in the country, to help ensure the safety of Tamils displaced by the recent civil war there.
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