Albanese, Dutton clash over asylum seeker boat arrival

Mr Dutton has hit out at the Prime Minister after a boat carrying a group of asylum seekers, reportedly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, arrived in Western Australia last week.

The Opposition Leader has claimed the Prime Minister does not believe in Operation Sovereign Borders - the Border Force effort established in 2013 to stop maritime arrivals of asylum seekers in Australia. Mr Albanese has dismissed this.

"You've got a situation where Labor doesn't believe in Operation Sovereign Borders and a situation obviously, where they are going to lurch from one disaster to the next because people smugglers know that this Prime Minister is leading a weak and incompetent government," Mr Dutton told reporters in Victoria on Tuesday.

But the Prime Minister reaffirmed his commitment to the Border Force operation when asked about the arrivals.

"I don't talk about operational matters, the important thing is we have Operation Sovereign Borders in place and those people, as has been reported, are now on Nauru," Mr Albanese told ABC Perth radio on Monday morning.

"What is important is how the response occurs, and that that message go out there that unauthorised arrivals such as these will not be allowed to settle in Australia.

"That was our commitment, we'll keep those Operation Sovereign Borders arrangements in place, that's precisely what we have done."

Mr Albanese went on to criticise the Opposition Leader over his time as immigration minister, after a review last week revealed Home Affairs had not done its due diligence in relation to offshore processing contracts.

The review, led by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson, covered some of the period during which Mr Dutton was the responsible minister, but "did not come across any matter of deliberate wrongdoing or criminality", nor did it find any evidence of ministerial involvement.

"Peter Dutton sort of sways between being angry about policy developments like tax cuts being put in, angry about international issues, angry about migration issues," Mr Albanese said.

"It would have been good if he channelled some of his feelings into actually looking after Home Affairs when he was the minister instead of the debacle where we know from the Richardson review last week there was hundreds of millions of dollars wasted and all sorts of chaos in the system."

"I do point towards the comments by the commander of Operation Sovereign Borders [Rear-Admiral Brett Sonter] who's been very clear that the comments such as that have been made, are unhelpful."