We're doing right thing about Nauru: PM

Tony Abbott insists Australia is doing everything it can to ensure basic human decency is applied at offshore asylum-seeker processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

As a Senate inquiry hears evidence about abuse allegations at the Nauru centre, the prime minister said his government is determined to do the right thing.

When there were reports that "untoward things" had happened in Nauru an independent review was conducted and all its recommendations were accepted, Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.