New refugee policy is legal, insists Labor

Interviewed on Channel Ten on Sunday, Mr Dreyfus said the arrangement announced by Kevin Rudd on Friday complied with Australian law and Australia's obligations under the refugee convention.

"Lawyers are free to say whatever they wish, but we have given very careful consideration to this arrangement with Papua New Guinea," Mr Dreyfus said.

All boat refugees denied life in Australia: Rudd

Under the deal, all asylum seekers who arrive by boat will be transferred to Papua New Guinea for processing. If found to be refugees, they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea or a third country.

"I am confident that it will withstand challenge," Mr Dreyfus said.

"We have the advantage of recent decisions of the High Court on which to base the course that we're adopting here." The High Court in September 2011 scuttled then Prime Minister Julia Gillard's plan to transfer asylum seekers to Malaysia in exchange for accepting refugees from Malaysia.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr said told Sky News it might it might be necessary for a re-elected Labor Government to legislate the PNG arrangement. But he said the government believed it was "legally very robust." "We've designed this with the High Court response to the Malaysian arrangement very much in mind," Senator Carr said.

Senator Carr defended the policy, arguing on current trends boat arrivals could grow to 50,000 a year, making a tough response to stem the rise unavoidable.

"You have got 3000 people arriving a month. The annual rate is something like 40 to 50,000 a year if it continues at this level," he said.

"If it continues at this level - the Prime Minister was very persuaded by this - it could rise further as people smugglers really close in to make a financial killing."

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey said a coalition government would try to make the PNG arrangement work.

"We would certainly look at trying to make it work," he told Channel Ten.

"It would be starting point but we have got to get to the bottom of it."

"The Government has found a budget for its advertising of the deal but it has not found a budget for the deal."

Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison welcomed PNG's interest and willingness to help but said the deal was not a substitute for the coalition's policies.

"I'm sure there are things we can salvage out of this," he told Channel Ten.

Mr Morrison said the agreement did not compel PNG to resettle all of the people Australia transferred to it, and he said PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said had told the coalition there was nothing to prevent PNG sending asylum seekers back to Australia.

Mr Morrison said the implementation of the deal would depend upon how quickly the capacity of Manus Island could be expanded and whether other sites could be found.

"The landholder issues anywhere in Papua New Guinea are always very difficult to work through," he said.

"What Kevin Rudd has done here is his usual clever political tactic. He's announced something that can't be tested in the space of an election campaign and hope everybody buys it."

Immigration Minister Tony Burke told ABC TV work needed to be done on the Manus Island facility to make it suitable for women, children and families.

Asked how long this would take, Mr Burke said "I don't think we'll be looking at a long period of time at all," but would not outline a timeframe.

Mr Burke said it was Australia's "guarantee" that asylum seekers who arrived by boat since Friday's announcement would not be resettled in Australia.

"The commitment that people won't be settled in Australia is a commitment of the Australian government," he said.

Mr Burke also warned that asylum seekers involved in a riot on Friday at the detention centre in Nauru could be refused visas or have their visa cancelled on character grounds.

"No one should underestimate the legal power that I have as Immigration Minister... to refuse or cancel visas on character grounds," Mr Burke said.

"I'm not going to prejudge individual cases, but people can imagine how issues like that can reflect on character."

Climate change minister Mark Butler admitted on Sunday there was some discomfort within Labor ranks about the party's new asylum seeker policy.

But Mr Butler, a member of the left faction, said it was widely accepted that strong action was needed on the issue.

"There would be people within the Labor movement and the Labor party and the broader community who would feel uncomfortable with this," he told Sky News.

"In my discussions with some people over the last couple of days, although there is a level of discomfort about some aspects of this, there is also a very strong and clear recognition that something very different needs to be done," he said.

smh.com.au, with AAP