Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australia needs a "tougher, more hard-edged" asylum-seeker assessment process.
Senator Carr, who switched his support from prime minister Julia Gillard to Kevin Rudd in an ALP leadership ballot on Wednesday night, said the nature of the asylum seeker boat arrival issue had changed.
"The people coming here by irregular maritime arrivals ... are being brought here by people smugglers - all of them," he told ABC Television after the ballot.
"Second change - they're not people fleeing persecution.
"They're coming from majority religious or ethnic groups in the countries they're fleeing.
"They're coming here as economic migrants."
Senator Carr said the Labor government recognised that Australia needed to change the process of assessing the status of refugees because an overwhelming majority of applications is approved.
"We've reached the view that as a result of court and tribunal decisions, it's coming up wrong," he said.
"We need a tougher, more hard-edged assessment."
AAP reports the Coalition recently reminded voters that more than 44,000 asylum seekers have arrived by boat in the five years since Mr Rudd dismantled Howard-era border protection policies.
Senator Carr travels to Jakarta on Thursday to meet his Indonesian counterpart. He said people-smuggling will "figure big" in the talks.
Mr Rudd was sworn-in again as Australian prime minister by Governor-General Quentin Bryce At Government House in Canberra on Thursday morning.
