Kristina Keneally has reaffirmed Labor’s support for the medevac legislation after Peter Dutton claimed the opposition is looking to repeal or amend the law which facilitates medical transfers from offshore detention.

On Sunday the home affairs minister said that more than 30 people have come to Australia under the medevac bill and gave new details about the refugee swap deal with the United States, including that two Rwandans accused of murder are the only people to have come to Australia under the deal.

Labor and the crossbench combined to pass the medevac bill in February over Coalition objections and Scott Morrison promised to repeal it if re-elected.

Keneally, the shadow home affairs minister, and Labor leader Anthony Albanese have flagged they will continue to support the medevac legislation, despite the party’s shock loss on 18 May. It will be subject to review by caucus, as with all policy taken to the 2019 election.

On Sunday Dutton said the legislation creates “quite a broad power” to overrule the minister and order medical transfers.

“I understand Labor is reconsidering its position now and that they would be open to suggestions about how that bill could be repealed or at the very least wound back,” he told ABC’s Insiders.

Keneally told Guardian Australia that Labor supports medevac because “it provides a way for people who are sick to get the care they need and ensures minister has final discretion as to who can come” but did not rule out consideration of amendments.

“What Mr Dutton’s comments today misconstrued is that second aspect of the legislation – he did not recognise the fact the parliament explicitly ensured the minister retained that discretion.

“If the government seeks to repeal medevac they need to explain to the parliament why that is necessary.”

Earlier, Dutton claimed the Coalition’s harsh policies towards asylum seekers have been a success, with the number of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru falling from 2,000 to just over 800.

“I want people off Manus and Nauru overnight, but I want to do it in a way that doesn’t restart boats, kids drowning at sea et cetera,” he said, citing people smuggling ventures in Sri Lanka to support the claim boats could restart.

Dutton revealed that “just over 30” asylum seekers have been brought to Australia under medevac, but said “many hundreds of people” who required medical attention had been taken off Manus and Nauru under pre-existing provisions.

Keneally said the fact dozens of people had come to Australia using the medevac provisions and other processes suggests the Morrison government “seems to have come to a belated realisation that, while Labor and the broader community supports Operation Sovereign Borders, Australians do not like the idea of their government denying sick people the medical care they need”.

Dutton revealed that 531 people have gone from Manus and Nauru to the United States under a controversial refugee swap deal, with a further 295 “in the pipeline, where they’ve got approvals but they haven’t been uplifted yet”.

The home affairs minister said he did not believe 1,250 people would be sent to the US – the upper limit under the deal negotiated by the Turnbull government – because “there have been over 300 that have been rejected by the United States for various reasons”.

“There’s 95 people who have either withdrawn from consideration or rejected an offer. And that’s a concern as well.”

Dutton denied that Australia was obliged to take refugees from the US under the deal, but said it has had “separate discussions” to help the US with special cases that are “very hard, intractable in some circumstances”.

In May the Australian government was rocked by a report from Politico that Australia gave humanitarian protection to Leonidas Bimenyimana and Gregoire Nyaminani, two Rwandan men who had been charged with murder, on request from the US government.

Dutton told Insiders the Australian government doesn’t have “plans to bring any others from America at this stage”.

“But we’ll look at discussions with the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand – our closest partners … into the future we’ll see what happens.”

Dutton said he was “not sure” the two men were guilty of killing tourists with machetes – which they confessed to under torture – and said the Australian government “will not take someone who is a risk to the Australian people”.

Dutton said the government had acted on the advice of experts with “full information” including Australian Border Force and US intelligence agencies.

Asked about the controversial $423m contract given to security contractor Paladin in Papua New Guinea, Dutton said it was an issue for the home affairs department whether it would be renewed in two weeks.

He said the “likely arrangement is that there will be a continuation” of the Paladin contract.