Senior Labor MP Tony Burke has shut down a push from within the party to adopt radical changes to its asylum-seeker policy.

Some refugee advocates within Labor are calling for an end to offshore processing and boat turnbacks ahead of the party's national conference.

Fairfax Media is reporting delegates from local branches affiliated to the Labor for Refugees are expected to put forward motions to close offshore processing centres.

But Mr Burke said a similar article appeared before every national Labor conference

"Every national conference has been a determination that we don't adopt any policy that would start the drownings again," the manager of opposition business told Sky News on Sunday.

"If you stop the turnbacks policy, I don't think there is any doubt that the drownings would commence again.

"I don't mind that there's some delegates who have that view and they push it, but they haven't been in the majority in the past."

A push to urgently transfer sick asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru to Australia has been put off until parliament resumes in February.

The legislation would allow critically ill refugees to be flown to Australia for medical treatment on the advice of two doctors.

Labor teamed up with the Greens and the crossbench in a bid to get the bill through, but the government believed changes would compromise Australia's border protection policies.

"The principle here is not that somebody gets transferred and gets to live here permanently, but someone gets transferred for the medical treatment on the basis that they are in our care," Mr Burke said.