PM keeps door ajar on NZ refugee offer

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has kept the door ajar on a long-standing New Zealand offer to resettle 150 refugees as the Manus Island detention centre stand off enters its fifth day.

Mr Turnbull held bilateral talks with NZ leader Jacinda Ardern in Sydney on Sunday morning.

Ms Ardern reiterated NZ's offer from 2013, which has been rejected by subsequently by successive Australian governments under Labor and the Liberal Party.

"The offer is very genuine and remains on the table," she told reporters in Sydney.

"We, of course, do not have the circumstances that Australia is operating under, we can also not ignore the human face of what Australia is dealing with as well."

Mr Turnbull said the US refugee resettlement deal, which will take up to 1250 people, was the priority.

"In the wake of that obviously we can consider other ones," he said.

"We thank New Zealand for making an offer, we are not taking it up at this time."

So far 54 refugees have been resettled in the US.

More than 600 refugees and asylum seekers have barricaded themselves in the mothballed detention centre on Manus Island, which closed on Tuesday.

Food and drinking water has run out and the group is too scared to move to alternative accommodation in the main township out of fear they'll be attacked by locals.

Earlier on Sunday, a government backbencher broke ranks and said Australia should consider accepting NZ help.

"We should give consideration to what New Zealand is offering," former immigration minister Kevin Andrews told Sky News on Sunday.