The Attorney-General warns a legal loophole will prevent asylum seekers transferred to Australia for medical treatment being sent back to detention on Manus Island and Nauru.
Christian Porter has blamed the oversight on poor drafting of medical evacuation laws passed last week against the government's will.
He has told the ABC there's no quick fix.
"The only way that this may be fixed eventually is through legislation and it is quite likely that that would have to apply retrospectively because we are facing hundreds of peoples' arrival in the very near future", Porter said.
Meanwhile, Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus says the language of the bill makes very clear that transfers are only temporary.
"On what we have got to go on at the moment we don't think that there is any problem. Our bill talked about temporary transfers and that's the idea. This desperate Attorney General running around, trying to create fear this morning, is talking about a situation that is already happening".
More in English via SBS News.
