Syrian refugees should be housed at the old Point Nepean barracks, as the Kosovar refugees were in 1999, Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has suggested.

Mr Guy has again distanced himself from Prime Minister Tony Abbott, joining a chorus of political leaders, including Premier Daniel Andrews, urging the Abbott government to boost its humanitarian intake of refugees in the face of the Syrian migrant crisis.

A Kosovar refugee child on the parade ground, Point Nepean quarantine station, 1999. Credit:Emmanuel Santos/State Library of Victoria

During the war in Kosovo in 1999, the Kennett and Howard governments housed 300 Kosovo refugees at the Norris Army Barracks on the site of the old quarantine station.

That group of refugees were among the last people to inhabit the site after the Defence Department moved out.