Stephen Fitzpatrick – Indonesia warned yesterday that Jakarta would not allow itself to become a refugee processing centre for Australia.

"We don't interfere in (Australia's) business, and in fact they've got Darwin and many other places (to process asylum-seekers), so why should it be done in Indonesia?" National Assembly member Nurhayati Ali Assegaf asked yesterday.

Mrs Assegaf, a member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, who sits on the powerful parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said there had been no request from Australia for Indonesia to become a "third country" processing point. And if there were, it was unlikely to be well-received.

Immigration department spokesman Maroloan Barimbing said Jakarta was "still studying the policies" likely to be pursued by new Prime Minister Julia Gillard during the remainder of her current term.

"In principle, if the (new Gillard) policies are good and can be more effective in handling the problem of illegal immigrants, then of course we would respond positively," he said.

Ms Gillard said at the weekend that, on the question of asylum- seekers, "obviously we do work with Indonesia and others and I will be open to looking at further effective measures to drive that co-operation and work".

The level of co-operation is in some doubt, however, with anti-people-smuggling legislation promised by Dr Yudhoyono during his speech to the Australian parliament more than three months ago reportedly still far from being ready.

The new laws, which would enable Indonesia to prosecute people-smugglers with punishments equal to those available in the Australian criminal justice system, have still been considered by the parliamentary committee responsible for proposing them to the house. "It's scheduled to be looked at in July," a committee staffer said.

And if the draft legislation makes it through the procedural stage of being considered by the committee, it faces dim prospects on the floor of parliament.

Records show Dr Yudhoyono, whose party is forced to operate in a coalition government, has not been able to pass any substantive legislation since the parliament sat last October.

As for suggestions that East Timor might be used as an asylum-seeker processing point, Fretilin parliamentarian Jose Teixera, a member of his country's parliamentary committee on defence, security and foreign relations, dismissed the idea.

"We ourselves have very strong guarantees in our constitution regarding the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, given that we as a people were at one time seekers of these international rights," Mr Teixera said.