Calls from within Federal Government to increase Australia's intake of Syrian asylum seekers have intensified, with a Liberal backbencher this time calling for the Coalition to accept up to 50,000 people.

Key points: Ewen Jones calls for Coalition to accept up to 50,000 Syrian asylum seekers

Ewen Jones calls for Coalition to accept up to 50,000 Syrian asylum seekers PM yet to commit to Labor request for one-off increase

PM yet to commit to Labor request for one-off increase Former Army chief warns Parliament should make decision over Syria air strikes

Federal Member for Herbert Ewen Jones wants the Government to accept tens of thousands more Syrians but he said it was up to ministers to decide whether the asylum seekers should be given temporary visas or granted permanent residency.

"I think if we're going to play in that space we should have a significant number, somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people," he told the ABC's 7.30 program.

"This is something that we could do effectively and we could absorb relatively quickly into our country."

Mr Jones said his Queensland electorate would be willing to take asylum seekers.

He claimed he had observed a distinct change in community feeling, sparked by the recent images of a drowned Syrian boy on the coast of Turkey.

"You forget how light children are. You forget how small they are as they grow, and it's one of the things, as you saw this poor lifeless little tot, that really does chill you straight through," Mr Jones said.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott pledged Australia would do more to help people fleeing Syria, but in a speech to Parliament on Monday he made no commitment to Labor's request for a one-off increase of 10,000 extra places for asylum seekers.

Mr Abbott told Parliament the Government's firm intention was to take a "significant number of people from Syria this year".

Mr Jones's intervention came after Liberal backbenchers Craig Laundy and Russell Broadbent called on the Government to help with the refugee crisis.

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Last week, New South Wales Premier Mike Baird also urged the Government to do more to help asylum seekers.

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Appearing on Monday night's Q&A, he questioned whether an extra intake of 10,000 would be enough.

"How do you know it's just 10,000? How do you know it shouldn't be more?" he said.

"It is very easy and very simple to put a number to, but what can we actually do, and can we do more than that?

"Who is to say we can't do more?"

But Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, who also appeared on the program's panel, said the number was a proportionate option.

"We've said 10,000 is our suggestion as a proportionate response from Australia," he said.

"We can do it very quickly and we can increase the intake and not make other people suffer."

He said Labor had called for an urgent meeting with the premiers and community sector to consider the possible solution.

Frydenberg suggests Howard-era solution

The assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Monday pointed to the example of the last Liberal prime minister, John Howard, who accepted 4,000 Kosovars on safe haven visas in the late 1990s.

Those people had to go home after three months and were not allowed to apply for permanent residency.

Refugee Council of Australia chief Paul Power does not favour safe haven visas but says that option would be better than doing nothing.

"The chances of people being able to return to safety, to a country where there is sufficient trust of different groups is not likely for some years, quite some years," he said.

Mr Jones agreed the entire process would be lengthy.

"Make no mistake about it. This is going to be a generation's work and more than a generation's work," he said.

"I think what you're seeing here is an incredibly difficult time."

Air strike approach 'missing strategy': former Army chief

Cabinet will weigh up its options on the asylum seeker intake as it prepares to tick off on a United States' request for Australia to expand its military operations against Islamic State (IS) to include Syria.

Former Australian Army chief Peter Leahy, who led forces during the last Iraq war, told 7.30 he believed the decision to intervene should be one for Parliament, not Cabinet alone.

"As happens in America, they then go to the Congress or in our case, to the Parliament, to seek support. Why not seek support and some advice on what to do?" he said.

"I think going into a conflict we need to have the Parliament behind us because that brings the Australian public."

Mr Leahy now leads Canberra University's National Security Institute and said the coalition of forces, including the US and Australia, had not clearly detailed a strategy or explained what success in the war against IS in Syria would look like.

"We can't destroy an ideology with an air campaign. It has to be done with all of those elements of power," he said.

"It has to be done with education, diplomacy and economic power and I think that's the bit missing in what's frankly a missing strategy.

"We're just dealing with part of the problem at the moment."