The Australian government says no asylum seeker arrived in Australia by boat in the past week, declaring its tough border protection policy is working.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said today 355 asylum seekers on seven boats had been intercepted by Australian authorities since the start of December.

None had arrived in the week leading up to today, despite ahn unusually favourable weather during the December monsoon season.

“This represents a 70 percent decline on last December, when there were 1,149 (arrivals) on 20 boats - so far this is the lowest number of arrivals in December for five years,”  Morrison said in a statement.

“The boats have not yet stopped but they are stopping.”

Critics say policy is inhumane

Morrison said that in the 100 days since the Sept 18 start of Operation Sovereign Borders, there had been an average of 145 asylum seeker boat arrivals on three boats a fortnight.

That compares with about 920 people on more than a dozen boats a fortnight between the introduction of the previous government's regional resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea and the establishment of Operation Sovereign Borders.

The Australian Associated Press reports the critics say the policy is inhumane, while the UN Human Rights Commission pointed to deficiencies in the running of the asylum-seeker processing camps on Nauru and in PNG - including unhygienic conditions and limited processing of asylum claims.

 Last week Morrison said he had been aware since early December of a 92-page letter from 15 doctors formerly employed at detention facilities that highlighted a low standard of medical care at the Australian-run detention centre on Christmas Island.

Morrison said Australia would continue to send asylum seekers to Christmas Island, while medical service provider International Health and Medical Services and his department would investigate the claims made in the letter.

- Bernama