Nauru is used as an offshore processing centre for asylum seekers who try to come to Australia by boat and more than 100 of them were due to face court over riots at a detention centre last July.
Another controversial idea, raised off and on during the past two decades by migration researchers, is to set up large processing centers for asylum claims to Europe in countries like Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon.
If I were to even go near considering the concept of regional processing centres for asylum seekers, I would need good answers to these questions: how will you ensure that conditions in these centres live up to human rights and to the UN refugee convention?
In more conservative mode, her government has re-established offshore processing centres for asylum seekers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea to try to stop people dying as they chance life in unseaworthy boats, but also bowing to a racist undercurrent in Australian society.
Lawmakers approved offshore processing camps for asylum seekers last month.
Manus Island hosts one of Australia's offshore processing camps for asylum seekers.
Lawmakers also recently approved the re-opening of offshore processing camps for asylum seekers in Nauru and PNG.
Earlier this month, lawmakers approved the re-opening of offshore processing camps for asylum seekers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard - whose party had until Monday opposed the move - said on Tuesday that she hoped processing centres for asylum seekers could be reopened "within a month".
Australia should set up offshore processing centres for asylum seekers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and pursue a refugee agreement with Malaysia, a panel has recommended.
