Australia to assist Indonesia in sunken boat probe

Australian Navy and federal police on Monday said they will assist the Indonesian investigation into the asylum seeker boat that capsized off the Java coast, leaving about 200 people missing feared dead. According to the Federal Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare, Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers have been deployed to Jakarta of Indonesia at the request of the Indonesian National Police. Patrol boats and a surveillance aircraft will take part in the search and rescue operation when it resumes later on Monday. Clare said the boat's departure in monsoon season, with rough seas, shows how people smugglers act with callous disregard for human life. "It's a business designed to make money, to take money off people," Clare told ABC Radio on Monday. "Often, as we see yesterday, it means they take people's lives, " "We have to work together to get this done," he said, referring to the government's preferred option of a refugee-swap arrangement with Malaysia. "We have to work together to make sure things like this don't happen again." Clare said the government remained committed to offshore processing as did the federal Opposition. An asylum boat carrying more than 200 people from Afghanistan and Iran, sank and capsized on high seas on Saturday. Indonesian officials reported that only 33 people have been rescued so far.