The Federal Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, says 10 Afghan asylum seekers have been taken from Christmas Island to Melbourne so they can receive better care.
The Government has decided to finish processing the boys' asylum applications on the mainland.
The Opposition spokeswoman on Immigration and Citizenship, Sharman Stone, says the movement of the boys is policy panic and she wants to know whether they will have access to the full gamut of Australia's court system.
But Senator Evans says this will not be the case.
"She doesn't understand the legislation that her government put through. I mean, this makes no change to their legal status.
"They are offshore entry persons. They have been processed on Christmas Island."
Senator Evans says the 10 boys have no guardians with them, and vulnerable groups have been treated in the same way before.
He says the asylum seekers are under the care and control of immigration officers and have not been released out into the broader community.
"They're in the final stages of processing and are likely to be accepted as refugees," he said.
"I decided after representations from the department to bring them off slightly earlier than we would have, on the basis that we could care for them better in Melbourne.
"We'd be able to finish the processing quicker and provide better support to them.
"This makes no change to their legal status. They're offshore persons, they've been processed on Christmas Island, they've been on the island since May 7, and I took a decision based on advice about concerns about their vulnerability that they come ashore a bit earlier.
"We've done this in other cases ... even the Howard government did it in other cases."
For the past eight years, all asylum seekers have been processed offshore.
And Senator Evans says the Federal Government is not changing its policy on where to process asylum seekers.
He says it is committed to processing asylum seekers offshore.
"Because that is where the Howard government built the detention facility. We committed to maintaining offshore processing but the previous government spent $400 million building the centre with a capacity of 800," he said.
"One of the reasons why you wouldn't change it [the policy] currently is I've got nowhere else to place people."
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UP to 20 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers were last night preparing to leave the Oceanic Viking as early as tomorrow, in the first signs of an end to the standoff that began almost four weeks ago.
While Australian authorities remained hopeful of persuading all 78 of the Tamils to leave the Customs ship tomorrow, when the Oceanic Viking's permission to remain in Indonesian waters ends, there were reports last night that up to 20 of them would submit to health and identity checks today before being taken ashore to the Tanjung Pinang detention centre.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry official Sujatmiko said tonight that, by today, "hopefully some of them are ready to be verified".
The break in the impasse came as Kevin Rudd insisted no protests or threats by protesters would divert him from his policy on border security, even as Australian authorities confirmed they had offered to give the 78 Sri Lankans preferential treatment if they left the Oceanic Viking.
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OFFER: 'Get off boat and you'll go to Australia'
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Speaking in New Delhi, Mr Rudd said he had not been briefed on the offer to the asylum-seekers but expected "normal resettlement processes consistent with the UNHCR" would apply.
A written offer guaranteeing resettlement was presented to the 78 boatpeople earlier this week.
Published under Department of Immigration letterhead and signed by Australian diplomat Jim O'Callaghan, it promised those already declared refugees would be resettled within four to six weeks.
Those whose claims were subsequently successful would be resettled within 12 weeks.
The letter does not promise a particular country but sources close to the negotiations said the bulk - if not all - would end up in Australia.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans acknowledged Australia would take a "sizeable amount of the load".
He denied that the offer - which would see declared refugees processed well within the 90 days that those on Christmas Island must wait - amounted to special treatment.
But he did acknowledge that other refugees detained in Indonesia often had to wait much longer for resettlement.