The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, ruled out Nauru, citing departmental advice that it was no more a deterrent to people smugglers than Christmas Island. He said ''the obvious result of that is onshore processing'' but vowed not to give up. ''We're not there yet,'' he said. ''The Australian people are entitled to conclude that the opposition has one objective here - to stop the Malaysia agreement being implemented because they are scared it will work.'' The government's last hope of forcing Mr Abbott's hand are separate amendments empowering the government to return unaccompanied minors. These are often sent by people smugglers as ''anchors'' because many are of dubious age, hard to send home and can then sponsor their families over.

The High Court made it virtually unworkable for minors to ever be sent back. Even if Nauru is still legal following the High Court decision, as Mr Abbott says it is, he as prime minister will not be able to deal with minors and could face boats laden with children. Ms Gillard said her proposed amendments to the Migration Act to enable the Malaysia plan, and those amendments dealing with minors, would be one piece of legislation and would not be split. Mr Abbott said ''let's cross that bridge if and when we come to it''. Labor MPs were visibly deflated and there is likely to be another outburst by the Left faction in caucus today after Ms Gillard amended her offer to Mr Abbott in a last-ditch attempt to gain his support. The government needs to override the August 31 High Court decision which ruled unlawful the Malaysia plan which would have swapped 800 asylum seekers for 4000 extra refugees. A draft amendment to the Migration Act, presented to Mr Abbott on Friday, removed from the act all reference to the human rights protections that were to be guaranteed to people returned to a third country.

The minister would be entitled to designate a third country as an offshore processing location if he or she felt it to be in the public interest. The opposition refused to accept the changes and there was an outcry from the Left over the removal of the guaranteed protections. When Mr Abbott met Ms Gillard in her office yesterday, she presented him with an amended proposal. The public interest test became a more broad ''national interest'' test but some human rights guarantees were inserted. These were that the third country had to process the refugee claims of those sent there, and that the third country could not send those people back to their homeland if they faced persecution or death. But the proposed amendments stipulated these conditions were not legally binding so the opposition refused them, too. ''What the government's new proposal does is pay lip service to protections without actually guaranteeing them,'' Mr Abbott said.

Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott was insulting Malaysia because it had promised to protect those people Australia sent back. ''No one made Malaysia come and enter this agreement. That it did so is indicative of its intentions,'' she said. Loading Before Mr Abbott met Ms Gillard at noon, the shadow cabinet had already resolved to demand any offshore processing centre be a signatory to the United Nations convention. The government attacked Mr Abbott for hypocrisy, given the Coalition policy includes towing back boats to Indonesia but Indonesia is not a signatory to the convention either.