Peter Dutton has responded to the leaking of thousands of files alleging abuse of children and adults in Nauru’s offshore immigration detention centre by saying some refugees are self-harming and filing false claims in an effort to get to Australia.

More than 2000 incident reports published by The Guardian outline various allegations of abuse, including assaults, sexual assaults and self-harm between 2013 and 2015.

Human-rights and refugee-advocacy groups have seized on the documents as proof that the government is overseeing a failed detention system, but Mr Dutton said some of the incidents were false reports.

The Immigration Minister said the allegations would be investigated by Nauruan authorities, but “some people do have a motivation to make a false complaint”.

“I have been made aware of some incidents that have reported false allegations of sexual assault, because in the end, people have paid money to people smugglers and they want to come to our country,” he told 2GB Radio.

“Some people have even gone to the extent of self-harming and people have self-immolated in an effort to get to Australia. Certainly some have made false allegations.”

In May, a 23-year-old Iranian died in a Brisbane hospital after self-immolating on Nauru.

A second refugee, a 21-year-old Somali woman, set herself alight the following day.

Mr Dutton also responded to what he called “hype” by saying that the centre was on Nauru, not Australia.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday rejected renewed calls from The Greens for a royal commission to be established to investigate the claims further.

Mr Turnbull said the government would assess the information that was now in the public domain.

“It will be carefully examined to see if there are complaints there or issues there that were not properly addressed,” he said.

Shadow immigration minister Shayne Neumann stopped short of supporting a royal commission into the matter, but said the Government should revisit a Labor bill allowing for an independent children’s advocate.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection yesterday responded to the allegations by saying “many of the incident reports reflect unconfirmed allegations or uncorroborated statements and claims — they are not statements of proven fact”.