"One of them is to be prepared to accept the return of a nation's own citizens who have not been afforded (refugee status)."

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who is in New York with Mr Turnbull, has tried previously to reason with Iran. She said she would continue to negotiate with her Iranian counterpart.

"The simple fact is, they are Iranians who have been found not to be refugees, they must go back to Iran," she said.

An inability to clear the camps at Nauru and Manus Island is an ongoing domestic political problem for the government. It contends that if it relents and allows those held there to come to Australia or another attractive country such as New Zealand or Canada, the flow of boats will restart.

Labor Senator Lisa Singh, who is in New York as a UN observer, told The Australian Financial Review that Australia should double its humanitarian intake and dump offshore processing.

"Australia's treatment of offshore detained refugees is cruel and inhumane, and is costing more than $570,000 per year, per refugee," she said.

"Indefinite detention is not the answer to an effective immigration policy. The flow of asylum seeker vessels into Australia has virtually ceased due to the turn-back policy. In light of the Government failing to find third country settlement options, there is no longer any reason why we cannot just end their suffering and bring them to Australia."

Labor's policy is a humanitarian intake of 27,000 by 2025. The Opposition called Mr Turnbull's commitment a "hoax", given he was only promising the maintain an existing target. The Human Rights Law Centre, Getup and the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce slammed the summit for doing nothing abut getting people out if detention.


Mr Turnbull's central message in New York, at a refugees summit on Tuesday and another Wednesday which was hosted by Barack Obama, has been that a government which fails to control its borders faces political destabilisation and will never win public support to take in refugees in a controlled manner, .

He stresses he is not lecturing other countries but just attesting to the success in Australia.

Mr Turnbull told the Obama summit that had the Abbott/ Turnbull governments not got the borders under control, the Australian public would never have allowed the government to offer sanctuary to 12,000 additional Syrian refugees nor let the government expand the annual humanitarian intake from 13,750 to 18,750 by 2018-19. Mr Turnbull announced the 18,750 would become permanent.

During the summit, Mr Obama commended Australia for its "leadership" on the issue. He announced the US would accept 110,000 refugess over the next year, a 60 per cent increase.

It is a hot topic in the US where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is actively campaigning against refugees, claiming they present a terror threat. He is also promising to build a wall to stop Mexicans jumping the border.

Mr Obama said the global crisis "is a test of our common humanity - whether we give in to suspicion and fear and build walls, or whether we see ourselves in another"

"Those girls being trafficked and tortured, they could be our daughters. That little boy on the beach could be our son or our grandson. We cannot avert our eyes or turn our backs," he said.