Paying asylum seekers who return home voluntarily has been standard practice for more than 10 years, the Federal Government says, amid reports some are being offered as much as $10,000 to return to their country of origin.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has refused to confirm individual dollar figures, saying they are determined on a case-by-case basis.

Fairfax Media is reporting Lebanese asylum seekers have been given $10,000 to leave Australia's offshore processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru and return home.

The reports say "return packages" for Iranians amount to $7,000, while Afghans are offered $4,000.

The Government says 283 asylum seekers have voluntarily returned to their home countries since Operation Sovereign Borders commenced last September.

"It has been the standard practice for more than a decade for settlement packages to be offered to those who voluntarily return home," Mr Morrison said.

"The packages are tailored individually to each and every person who decided to voluntarily return home."

Mr Morrison says the minimum payment is "obviously" zero, but will not confirm what the maximum payment is.

"The packages range [in terms of] value and it's not just in terms of any financial element, but also training, support and other issues to assist people to get on their feet when they return," he said.

The Opposition says the Government should focus on processing asylum seekers in detention, instead of offering them money to leave before their claims are assessed.

"We don't need blank cheques, we need people being processed," Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said.

"I would remind you that when Scott Morrison was in opposition, he opposed Labor's own reintegration packages and now he is offering sums which are triple the amount.

"In opposition Scott Morrison opposed the PNG arrangement and now it forms the heart of his own strategy.

"There is no bridge of hypocrisy that Scott Morrison will not cross."

Greens leader Christine Milne says the payments are wrong because returning asylum seekers could face persecution.

"The idea that you would put people in a hell hole like Manus Island, treat them abysmally and then try to bribe them to go back to the appalling circumstances they left shows just how morally bankrupt this Government is," she said.

"[Paying] people to go back to torture, to abuse, is disgraceful. There's no way you could describe this as voluntary."

Protection visa cap struck down by High Court

It came a day after the High Court struck down a law which allowed the Government to cap the number of protection visas it issues for refugees in Australia.

The ruling followed separate applications to the court from two asylum seekers - an Ethiopian boy and a Pakistani man - who were found to be refugees but denied protection visas because of the cap.

Mr Morrison capped the number of protection visas granted in the financial year at 2,773 after the Senate blocked the Government's re-introduction of temporary protection visas.

The High Court found the Minister did not have the power to limit the number of visas issued within a specific financial year.

The court has ordered Mr Morrison reconsider the asylum seekers' applications for protection.

Mr Morrison says the Government can do that while maintaining its policy stance, but he is refusing to say how.

"The decision of the court is respected and we'll act in accordance with the decision of the court but what we won't do is provide permanent visas to people who arrived illegally by boat," he said.

"There is no change on that front, the Government has contingency measures and we'll be pursuing them."

Mr Marles says the decision has left the Government's policy in shambles.

"The Government stubbornly acted with petulance in its policy of closing up shop and that has been repudiated by the High Court and Scott Morrison's policy is in disarray," he said.

Meanwhile, the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide has passed 51 million, the UN's High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) revealed this week, the highest level since World War Two.

The UNHCR said there are 6 million more refugees than last year, primarily due to escalating crises in Syria and multiple parts of Africa.

Worldwide, nearly 17 million people are refugees, more than 1 million have open asylum applications and a record 33.3 million people are internally displaced.

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