The opposition Liberal coalition is accusing Rudd of going soft on immigration as 54 more asylum seekers are on their way to Christmas Island where Australia has set up what some media have called the country's Guantanamo Bay.

Julie Bishop, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, is pressing the government for an urgent review into Australia's border protection laws to deter asylum seekers making the dangerous trip to Australia, local media report. She said the latest boatload brings the total number of people intercepted to 1,620 since the border protection laws were eased last year.

The uncrewed vessel was intercepted off the West Australian coast at the weekend, according to a report in The Australian newspaper.

A Border Protection Command P-3 Orion aircraft sighted the vessel adrift in international waters about 550 nautical miles north of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. A child was among the 54 people, all without food and water.

The government insisted last week that the Christmas Island center was coping well despite an added 48 asylum seekers from a previous vessel that authorities boarded on Sept. 16.

The center has a capacity of 1,200, and the number of asylum seekers is now likely more than 800. But Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said the government's $564 million strategy to combat people-smuggling was proof it was taking the problem seriously.

"The Australian government is pleased that the group is safe, but it is only through Border Protection Command's and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's vigilance that these people escaped greater harm," O'Connor said in a report in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

But opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said immigration policy and border protection has now completely broken down. "It's an example of this government (being) completely out of control," she told reporters in the federal administrative capital Canberra last week.

She berated Rudd's government for hauling in more boats full of asylum seekers and then claiming the action as a victory against people smuggling, while at the same time doing nothing to stem the flow of asylum seekers in their home countries.

More than 30 boats have arrived in Australia since the Rudd government took office in 2007, and people smugglers want their vessels to be found by the authorities. "For Brendan O'Connor to say, 'Look how clever we've been, we've found another boat,' that's nonsense," Stone said.

The government has in the past blamed the wars in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka as well as the global economic downturn for pushing up the asylum numbers.

Soon after coming to power Rudd scrapped the policy of his Liberal predecessor, John Howard. The government had been detaining asylum-seekers and their children for years in special centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea under what was called the Pacific Solution.

Rudd's policy is to use the Christmas Islands as a holding base and to speed up assessments of claims, including six-monthly case reviews by an ombudsman.

Meanwhile, a report in The Age newspaper noted that two Indonesian men and a Sri Lankan man have been charged with people smuggling in connection with two of this year's apprehended boats.

Federal police said the two Indonesian men were alleged to be crew of a vessel that arrived in Australia on Aug. 29 as part of an attempt to smuggle 52 people into Australia.

The Sri Lankan man was charged in connection with smuggling 32 people on April 22.

If found guilty they face up to 20 years in prison or a $190,000 fine, the report said.

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