Di Natale pushes Labor on refugee plan

Greens leader Richard Di Natale says Australia should not outsource its responsibilities around refugees to other nations.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has said he'll send his immigration spokesman Richard Marles to Geneva from day one of a Shorten government to re-engage with the UNHCR on where the refugees could be resettled.

Currently the options are Papua New Guinea, Cambodia or returning to their homelands.

"I cannot believe that we are so inept that we couldn't have negotiated resettlement arrangements for 2000 or 3000 people in the last three years," Mr Shorten told Fairfax Media on Saturday.

But Senator Di Natale said that wasn't good enough.

"Why doesn't Bill Shorten simply say, like many other prime ministers before him, that those small number of genuine refugees will be settled here in Australia the day after the election," Senator Di Natale told reporters in Sydney.

He said if the Greens were in a position to influence the policy of major parties after the election, no one would be sent to Geneva.

"We will be saying let us ensure that those very small numbers of refugees that have been imprisoned on Nauru and Manus Island come to Australia and contribute," he said.