Timeline: Asylum in Australia

Back in the 1970s and 1980s Australia accepted thousands of Vietnamese boat people, but for the first time ever it is refusing entry to a cargo ship full of asylum seekers.

Since 1994, Australia has put all illegal immigrants in detention centers while their claims for asylum are processed.

Here is a brief timeline of the illegal immigration situation in Australia to date.

1994 -- Nine detention centers are set up in Australia.

1997 -- U.N. Human Rights Committee calls mandatory detention "Australia's continuing shame" in a report of the same name.

1998 -- Amnesty International condemns mandatory detention as a breach of international human rights. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission also condemns the policy.

2000 -- U.N. Human Rights Committee urges Australia to reconsider mandatory detention.

March 2000 -- The Australian government estimates that one-third of boats attempting to bring people illegally to Ashmore Reef, north of Australia, did not arrive.

2001 -- Australian parliamentary committee urges time limit on detention and calls for an upgrade of camp conditions. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees calls Australia's mandatory detention policy "draconian."

April 2001 -- Refugee detention centers are hit with a fresh wave of rioting by detainees.

June 2001 -- Australia's immigration minister Philip Ruddock tours Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam amid a surge in the number of people entering Australia illegally through organized criminal gangs.

June 11 -- Seven illegal immigrants from the Middle East escape from a detention center into the Australian Outback.

June 15 -- Australian Federal Police intercept a boat carrying 231 suspected illegal immigrants from the Middle East off Christmas Island.

July 2001 -- A report from the Australian Institute of Criminology finds people smuggling has become much more sophisticated.

July 19 -- Twenty-three men escaped from the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, western Sydney through a drainage system beneath a makeshift mosque and another 23 cut their way out through fences three days later.

July 31 -- A court in Australia's northwest sentences five Indonesian men to a total of 21 years in jail for smuggling people from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Each passenger paid between $4,000 and $5,000 for the trip.

August 14 -- An Indonesian vessel, carrying 60 would-be immigrants and four crew, was boarded off Ashmore Island, in the far northwest by the Australian Customs Service.

August 21-- Another 250 people, believed to be asylum seekers, arrive by boat at Ashmore Island.

August 23 -- Australia's opposition Labor party pledges to set up a coastguard to crack down on people smugglers if it wins a year-end election.

August 27 -- A Norwegian cargo vessel arrives near Christmas Island with 400 asylum seekers. Both Indonesia and Australia initially refuse to allow the ship to enter their waters.

Reuters contributed to this report.