Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull conceded on Wednesday the government did not have "a definitive road map" on what to do, just hours before PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill announced the Manus Island facility would close and Australia would have to make "alternative arrangements" for the detainees. Karl Stefanovic questions Peter Dutton on Thursday. But Mr Dutton told Today on Thursday: "We've been anticipating the Supreme Court decision in PNG and we've been planning for this since late last year." That prompted Stefanovic to ask the minister why the government seemed to have been blindsided by the ruling. "It doesn't say much about your planning," he told Mr Dutton. "You say you've known for months this ruling was coming, and yesterday [Mr Turnbull] said we have no road map. How long does it take the Prime Minister to come up with a road map?"

Mr Dutton then said Mr Turnbull had been "part of these discussions for a long period of time". The discussions involved the cabinet's National Security Committee, Operation Sovereign Borders Commander Andrew Bottrell, Immigration Department secretary Michael Pezzullo and the Australian Federal Police. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The cabinet reportedly met on Wednesday night to discuss the urgent situation, with PNG suggesting the centre could close almost immediately - just days away from the May 3 budget and a week before the anticipated start of the official election campaign. Mr Dutton suggested refugees who were owed protection could be resettled in PNG or elsewhere in the region, while those whose applications had been rejected would be sent back to their country of origin. But those plans were subject to ongoing negotiations.

"They obviously want to come to Australia but we've been clear that they won't," he said. "We are negotiating with third countries, we'll continue our discussions with PNG." Again, Stefanovic fired up. "You can't answer the question what happens," he told the minister. "You've been told that this facility's closing and you can't answer the question for what happens to those 850 asylum seekers." Speaking in Tasmania on Thursday, the Prime Minister reiterated that the Manus detainees will not be resettled in Australia and said a "strong defence against the people smugglers" needed to be maintained.

"That detention centre at Manus was set up by Labor. Its residents there, the detainees there, are the consequence of Labor's failure to maintain the strong border protection policies that they had inherited, but then discarded," he said. "We are seeking to ensure that the people detained at Manus can either settle in PNG as they have the opportunity to do, or in third countries, but they will not come to Australia." PNG's high commissioner to Australia, Charles Lepani, said on Thursday morning it was the Australian government's responsibility to deal with the fallout from the Supreme Court ruling. He said PNG was open to resettling some of the refugees from Manus Island permanently, but that it was "never Papua New Guinea's understanding" that it would take all of those people who were found to be owed protection. "A lot of the details like that were allowed to just drag on," Mr Lepani told ABC radio.

Other possible options include taking the detainees to Christmas Island, the remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, or sending them to the detention centre in Nauru. Mr Dutton told Sky News the Nauruan facility had capacity for more people, but discussions with PNG would take precedence. He also appeared to leave the door open for a temporary solution on Christmas Island, declaring that refugees would not be "permanently" resettled here. Australian Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs said the government's hardline approach was no longer "an adequate answer", saying the conditions of offshore processing were "dangerous" and "unsustainable". "It may very well be that it takes a unanimous judgment in the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court to finally shift public opinion and maybe also political views," she told ABC Radio National. "Australia can't force Papua New Guinea to hold people that were originally Australia's responsibility. But equally … it's very difficult for Papua New Guinea to take these asylum seekers back."

Ms Triggs said the imminent election campaign meant it was "almost impossible" that either side of politics would change their politically successful policies on offshore detention. "The timing is really so bad," she said. "It really leaves the matter in limbo." Follow us on Twitter