Australia's former head of the Human Rights Commission has called the government's treatment of Manus Island detainees "inhumane", insisting the men be brought to Australia.
The last of about 300 men refusing to leave the now-closed detention facility were forcibly removed nearly two weeks ago, ending a tense three-week stand-off and joined hundreds of others already moved to alternative accommodation sites.
"We really do have to come to terms with the fact that we need to bring them home, we need to bring them to Australia," former Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs told ABC's Q and A program on Monday night.
"The inhumanity has reached a level where as a nation we have to respond ... it's not Australian and we're seriously in breach of our international obligations."
Humanitarian agencies have warned Australia's political leaders the refugees and asylum seekers are at grave risk of an impending mental crisis.
The warning comes after the advocates returned from a week in Papua New Guinea and delivered a bleak assessment about the "most insidious and deep impact" indefinite detention is having on about 600 men.
Labor Senator Lisa Singh called it a "human rights catastrophe" and urged the government to take up New Zealand's offer to home 150 refugees.
"It is absolutely amazing that you have a third country settlement option in New Zealand, an offer that was made under the previous conservative New Zealand government and now under the Labour New Zealand government, and Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton are refusing to take it up," Ms Singh said on Q and A.
