Tony Abbott was sworn in as Australia's new prime minister and promised immediate action to slow the stream of asylum seekers arriving by boats from Indonesia and to repeal an unpopular carbon tax levied by the previous administration, Belfast Telegraph said.

He was the first of 42 government executives to be sworn in by Governor General Quentin Bryce at a ceremony at Government House in the capital Canberra.

He has been criticised for including only one woman in his 19-member Cabinet, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop - although she will be Australia's first woman named to that post.

His conservative party defeated former prime minister Kevin Rudd's center-left Labour Party in the September 7 elections.

"We are determined to honour our commitments to scrap the carbon tax, to stop the boats, to get the budget under control and to build the roads of the 21st century," Abbott told the ceremony. "We aim to be a calm, measured, steady and purposeful government that says what it means and does what it says."

According to BBC News, the new prime minister also says tough new policies to end the flow of asylum-seekers arriving in Australia via Indonesia will come into effect today (September 18).

Under a Labor policy, all asylum-seekers arriving by boat are being sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement if found to be refugees.

Abbott is maintaining this policy and has promised to "stop the boats" - turning them back to Indonesia where safe to do so, a policy over which Indonesia has voiced concern.

He is expected to place the deputy chief of the army in charge of combating people smugglers, and his government will also restrict refugees already in Australia to temporary protection visas which must be regularly renewed.

Rights groups have criticised both the previous and incoming governments' policies on asylum.