Federal government plans to block refugees who arrived in Australia by boat from ever returning on any kind of visa are essential because some may enter into “sham relationships” to get here, the immigration minister has said.

The government announced on Sunday it would seek to ban any adult who has had their application processed on Manus Island or Nauru from returning to Australia, including on tourism or business visas, regardless of where they end up settling.

On Wednesday Peter Dutton said the government was still talking to a number of third countries to take refugees off Australia’s hands, but he was “not going to have any outcome that we put in place undermined by people coming back to our country through a separate visa process”.

“I’m not going to allow an arrangement where people believe that it’s OK to enter into what are essentially sham relationships to come to Australia on a spouse visa or through some other means,” he said.

Asked about the impact the policy would have on families who had been split between countries, Dutton suggested ministerial intervention would be used “sensibly” to reunite families, but only in third countries, not Australia.

That would mean people who had been settled in Australia would have to emigrate to join a family member who was barred from settling or visiting Australia.

When asked if the policy was essential to getting a deal with other countries for refugee resettlement, Dutton said it was “imperative” in order to put the government’s policy “in black and white”, and accused advocates and media outlets of telling asylum seekers the government would “fold” and allow them into Australia.

The policy has been widely criticised as cruel and unnecessary. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said it was “ridiculous” on the face of it, but would not rule out supporting it until Labor had seen the legislation.

Dutton’s press conference responded to criticisms from the former Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who accused the government of trying to appease the far right with its plan.



“It is without any policy merit in dealing with the real policy challenges all countries face today in what is now a global refugees crisis,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Fairfax.

Dutton said Rudd was attempting to rewrite history, and called on Shorten to distance Labor from its former leader’s comments.

“We are not going to take advice from Kevin Rudd who, from the lofty heights of his apartment in New York, somehow wants to give us a lecture on how to control Australia’s borders,” he said.

