A United Nations report has paved the way for the Government to take a stronger stance against asylum seekers.

The report, from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, describes "greatly improved" security in Sri Lanka, and says it should not be presumed that Tamils need asylum.

It says some women and children, as well as people with links to the Tamil Tigers, still face the risk of persecution even though the situation in the country has improved.

The Federal Cabinet met late yesterday to consider a decision on whether to lift Australia's three-month freeze on processing Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

It is understood a decision was deferred because Cabinet had not had access to the UN's report.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called a press conference for 10:30am AEST, when she is expected to talk about the Government's new border protection policy.

Sustainable Population Minister Tony Burke says the Government will not be turning boats back.

"It's not necessarily realistic to say they're going to be towing boats back to Indonesia. [It's] not going to happen," he told ABC TV's Q&A program.

Move to the right

Greens leader Bob Brown has attacked Ms Gillard for failing to show leadership and "moving to the right" on the issue.

Senator Brown told The 7.30 Report that Prime Minister Julia Gillard has shown a lack of leadership over the asylum seeker debate.

"It corroborates that warning given by her predecessor, Mr Rudd, about how he was not going to be pushed to the right on this issue," he said.

"There is a move to the right in the Labor party and it's very frightening, very worrying indeed."

He says both the major parties are trading in xenophobia to win votes at the election.

"When you hear the Prime Minister of the nation saying that she's not going to support political correctness, that's a direct put down to people who do believe in humanity, in decency and in legality, in treating the people who fear persecution and come to our shores as asylum seekers," he said.

"Four per cent of the migrants to this nation in the last six months came in boats, 96 per cent didn't.

"But we're not hearing a debate about them, nor about the 50,000 overstayers on visas who came by plane and who are illegal in this country."

New policy

The Coalition will today release an updated version of its immigration and border protection policy which it says will improve the assessment process for deciding who should be granted refugee status.

The policies will include measures to toughen the processing rules for asylum seekers who have deliberately destroyed their identity documents.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the policies are designed to give Australians greater confidence that only genuine refugees are allowed to stay.

"Where people are known to have ... thrown away their documentation prior to being assessed .. then we won't be giving them a green light," he said.

"What we will be doing is making them come back and provide even greater reasons as to why their case should be accepted."

Mr Morrison says the Coalition will also ensure the final decision on whether a visa is granted does not rest with assessors on Christmas Island.

He says the Immigration Minister should have the final say.