Australia accused of spying

The government denies it overstepped its power

The Australian Government has been accused of spying on its citizens by intercepting private phone calls made to a Norwegian ship during a crisis involving asylum seekers last year.

An Australian newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, reported the government used a top secret defence agency to monitor calls to the ship, the Tampa, after it rescued more than 400 mainly Afghan asylum seekers from their sinking boat.

I think it's outrageous, it's un-Australian and it shows that the government is prepared to stop at nothing

Opposition Labor leader Simon Crean

The Australian Government refused to allow the asylum seekers to come ashore.

The newspaper says the government used transcripts of the conversations between the crew and the Australian Maritime Union to form a political response to the crisis.

But the Australian Government denied the defence agency had overstepped its powers.

'Un-Australian'

A minister, Tony Abbott, said the action was reasonable given the threats made by the asylum seekers against the ship's captain, and the fact that Australian troops had boarded the ship.

Opposition Labor leader Simon Crean said if the allegations were true, the government's behaviour had been "outrageous and un-Australian".

The Defense Signals Directorate - part of the defence department - is not meant to pass Australian calls to the government except under extreme circumstances, such as serious criminal offences or a threat to the lives and safety of Australians.

The 438 boat people rescued by the Tampa from a sinking ferry off Indonesia on 26 August were prevented during an eight-day stand-off from landing on Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island.

SAS troops boarded the ship and the government later ordered the asylum seekers to be taken to the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru to have their claims processed in what became known as its "Pacific solution."