THREE boats carrying 138 asylum seekers arrived in Australian waters at the weekend, as another boatload of 51 people intercepted last week was unloaded at Christmas Island.

The rush of boats, which comes after a 50 per cent drop in boat arrivals this year, appears a swift reaction by people smugglers to the collapse of the federal government's offshore processing policy. Labor was unable to win opposition support to pass legislation to overcome new High Court restrictions.

The Home Affairs Minister, Brendan O'Connor, blamed the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, for the four boat arrivals, describing him as ''the best friend that people smugglers have ever had''.

''This is a stark reminder to everybody that Tony Abbott has sought to trash border protection in this country,'' he said.

Mr Abbott said three boats in 24 hours was ''the fault of a government which not only gave the people smugglers a business model but really is the people smugglers business model''.

The first boat carrying Iranian and Iraqi asylum seekers was unloaded at Christmas Island on Saturday. Another two boats, carrying 79 and 44 asylum seekers, were intercepted by two naval vessels on either side of Christmas Island on Saturday night, and unloaded at the jetty yesterday at lunchtime. A fourth small boat was intercepted at Ashmore Island carrying 15 asylum seekers.

The opposition's immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said allowing boat arrivals to access work rights and welfare were ''pull factors [that] will only contribute to the problem''. But the Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, said boat arrivals would simply be treated the same as asylum seekers arriving by plane. There were 6316 asylum seekers who arrived by plane and applied for a protection visa in 2010-11, compared to 5175 boat arrivals applying for the same visa, according to the Immigration Department's annual report.