Sydney  - Australia's immigration policy needs to be recast because recent boat arrivals are mostly seeking prosperity rather than fleeing persecution, an influential opposition parliamentarian said Tuesday.

Barnaby Joyce's call for tougher border protection came after two boats arrived at the weekend carrying 40 asylum-seekers and bringing to 28 the number of vessels that have arrived so far this year. Only seven boats came in all of 2008.

"They don't fit the general picture of refugees under pressure," Joyce said after meeting those held at the immigration detention centre on Christmas Island. "No doubt there is a proportion who are refugees by dispossession and persecution, but a majority appear to be economic migrants."

He claimed that "many have arrived with their multivitamin tablets" and "seem very happy here, which is a concern."

Earlier this year, press reports claimed 3,000 asylum-seekers had arrived in Indonesia by boat from Malaysia. Most were from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Iraq and intended to continue to Australia.

More than 1,600 asylum-seekers have arrived in Australia since August, when the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd softened Canberra's treatment of illegal arrivals.

Under former prime minister John Howard, boats were intercepted and those on board taken to Pacific island countries that hosted offshore immigration centres on Canberra's behalf. There, they were processed under United Nations rules, which are stricter than Australia's own rules.

The so-called Pacific Solution, credited with stopping the flow of unwanted arrivals, was abandoned by Rudd's Labor government when it was elected in November 2007.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor attributes the increase in arrivals to factors beyond Australia's control.

"People smuggling is not just an issue for Australia," he said. "It's a global and regional problem." (dpa)