Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's push for a global approach to asylum seeker arrivals in Australia has been labelled a distraction from Labor's failed border policies by the federal opposition.
Mr Rudd has indicated the government might call for the 60-year-old UN Refugee Convention to be changed to reflect current movements of displaced people around the world.
This could make it easier for Australia to reject refugee applications for people it deems to be economic migrants and not persons fleeing persecution or war.
The government is expected to announce a new asylum seeker strategy, centred on national, regional and global policies, in the coming days.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said raising the convention was a "red herring" and Mr Rudd appeared to be preparing to lead "some kind of an international crusade to change an international rule".
"Mr Rudd is always trying to internationalise problems and that's an excuse for inaction here in Australia," he told reporters in Rockhampton on Thursday.
"Stop trying to say that this is the world's problem - it's not, it's our problem."
Mr Abbott would not be drawn on whether he thought the convention needed to be reviewed.
"The difficulty with the convention is the way it's been imported into Australian law," he said.
"It's the things that we do here in Australia that matter."
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said he had strong reservations about the interpretation of the convention and its impact on domestic policies.
He stopped short of confirming whether a coalition government would remain a signatory to the convention.
However, he hinted the coalition might remove the appeals process to the refugee tribunal, as it did under the Howard government.
"That is obviously an outcome that if it can legally be implemented once again, that we would look kindly upon," Mr Morrison told ABC radio.
Parliamentary secretary Ed Husic said it was right to look at ways of updating the convention to meet current conditions.
"Where there are situations where people are fleeing persecution and the immediate threat of violence, then certainly the convention does operate in the right way," he told Sky News.
"What it doesn't deal with is someone hopping on a plane from (the Iranian capital) Tehran, going to Indonesia ... and then hopping on a vessel to come across and do the two day trip (to Australia) and classing themselves as a refugee."
Former foreign minister Gareth Evans said it was sensible for Australia to begin an international dialogue about revamping the convention.
"We have to recognise there have been concerns about the applicability of the convention to the circumstances of the 21st century compared to the post World War II years," he told ABC Radio.
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