A fishing boat carrying asylum seekers has reached Australian territory.
Fourteen asylum seekers arrived at Melville Island, north of Darwin, yesterday.
It is only the second vessel to reach Australian territory since the Tampa arrived with 4-hundred and thirty asylum seekers in August 2001, prompting Australia to change its policy of processing boatpeople by using detention centres in Pacific Islands countries.
The Australian news agency, AAP, says Australian navy vessel is travelling to Melville to seize the asylum seekers' boat, while federal police, customs, immigration and quarantine officials are already on the island.
Australia's Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, says it is too early to tell if the asylum seekers will be sent to t offshore immigration centres in Papua New Guinea or to Nauru where hundreds of asylum seekers have been for more than two years.
