Refuge is on horizon for 438 left stranded at sea

The 438 mainly Afghan refugees who have spent nine days moored off Australia's Christmas Island on board the Norwegian freighter Tampa, were last night transferred on to an Australian naval vessel on which they were to begin their journey to Papua New Guinea at around midnight local time.

The complicated transfer of the refugees from the Tampa to the HMAS Manoora began at about 6 p.m., just hours after the Federal Court in Melbourne lifted an injunction preventing their removal from the Norwegian freighter.

The journey is expected to take between six and 10 days. From Papua New Guinea, 150 of the asylum-seekers will be flown to New Zealand, with the remainder to be flown to the tiny South Pacific island nation on Nauru, which is about 4,000 km north-west of Sydney, after an agreement was reached on Saturday between the governments of those countries and Australia.

Friday's Federal Court injunction was granted to a number of civil liberties groups, led by the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, which contends that the Australian government has broken Australian and international laws in refusing to allow the refugees land on Australian soil and apply for political asylum.

While yesterday's lifting of the court order allowed the group to transfer ships and begin their voyage to Papua New Guinea, there is still a chance that the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, and his government may be compelled by the court to back down and take the refugees.

The Federal Court is to hear more submissions from civil liberties groups today as to why they believe the refugees should be allowed to enter Australia.

The groups contend that the Australian government is bound by law to process the refugees because they reached Australian waters.

But the government has argued that the refugees would only have been entitled to have their asylum cases heard if they had reached Australian land.

"We don't think the claim made in the Federal Court has a proper legal basis," said Mr Howard yesterday.

"We are vigorously opposed to it, we have vigorously opposed it, we will continue to vigorously oppose it, as vigorously as the legal circumstances allow," he said.

The court is expected to hand down its judgment on the matter as early as tomorrow and if the action is successful the Manoora will be forced to turn around and return the refugees to Australia.

Even if that action fails, it has emerged that the majority of the refugees may end up living in Australia, albeit in two to three years' time.

Their asylum applications will be processed by the UN and those judged to have genuine cases will be allowed to stay in either Nauru or New Zealand, from where they will be able to apply for Australian citizenship if they wish.

The refugees found themselves at the centre of a major international diplomatic storm last week after being rescued from their sinking ferry by the crew of the Tampa as they tried to make their way from Indonesia to Christmas Island, where they had hoped to claim asylum.

Mr Howard decided to refuse the group entry into Australia in order to send a message to people-smuggling gangs that his country was not a soft touch.

His stance has been widely condemned around the world, but in Australia, where illegal immigration is a thorny issue, it has won him many admirers.