Papua New Guinea's government is promising to pass laws that will allow refugees to resettle there permanently, after it emerged that PNG does not have permanent residency visas.
It follows PNG signing a Memorandum of Understanding formalising the asylum seeker deal with Australia.
The deal would see asylum seekers deemed to be genuine refugees resettled in the country.
But PNG's announcement has not allayed other questions about the resettlement agreement.
Aileen Phillips reports.
Papua New Guinea's government says it will pass legislation to establish a new visa class so refugees can live in the country.
PNG's Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato says the government is likely to introduce the legislation in September.
Mr Pato says his government will have to legislate a new visa class for the refugees, after it emerged that PNG does not have permanent residency visas.
"Once it's determined under PNG law that they are genuine refugees, then there will be legislation passed to ensure that they're recognised and they're given a different class of visas under our law, so I can say to you that the process and the terms are well and truly working."
But the federal opposition continues to doubt how realistic the agreement between the two countries is.
Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says there are many flaws in the memorandum of understanding and there are no guarantees people will not be sent back to Australia.
"There is no enforceable commitment in this document to resettle everyone who goes to PNG who is found to be a refugee. There is no such enforceable commitment in this document that would bind PNG in any form or another. All it does is enable people to be resettled, it certainly does contain no commitment that they will be resettled. Secondly, there is no provision for permanent resettlement in PNG, you won't find that word in this document anywhere."
Immigration Minister Tony Burke says he has utmost confidence in the MOU and that PNG will follow through on the agreement.
"If I read directly from the Memorandum of Understanding, clause 13, the government of Papua New Guinea undertakes to enable transferees who enter Papua New Guinea under this MOU who it determines are refugees to settle in Papua New Guinea. It doesn't get much clearer than that."
However, Professor of Globalisation and Cultural Diversity at RMIT University, Paul James, says passing a law to introduce a new type of visa is not a straight forward process in PNG.
He says until it passes and becomes law, Australia's plan may not come to fruition.
"The (PNG) government is a very fragile and moving feast. That is, it is made up of coalition of many parties and it has an opposition, which although in disarray is still quite powerful and the effect of that, even with a strong government as it currently has, it has to negotiate across lots of different concessional and different groups. So it has to be able to convince those different sub-parties, the members of the government and parts of the opposition that this is good for PNG."
In the MOU, PNG has pledged not to send asylum seekers back to countries where their lives are endangered, in accordance with the United Nations Refugee Convention.
It also says Australia will bear all costs of the plan, and that equipment transfers between countries are tax exempt.
Meanwhile, Australia's Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has described Papua New Guinea's laws banning homosexuality as concerning, and at odds with contemporary Australian values.
But Senator Carr says homosexuals will not be exempt from the policy of sending all asylum seekers who arrive by boat to PNG.
"I am concerned by the fact that you've got a different legal, what we would see as a grotesquely outdated legal position applying in PNG. I understand, and I know this is little comfort, that there have been few, if any, charges laid or prosecutions made under laws prohibiting homosexual activity in PNG."
Professor Paul James, from RMIT University, says refugees engaging in any activity deemed inappropriate under local laws will find themselves in great difficulty.
"Bob Carr isn't wrong, but he is overstating the case and he is putting it simply in legal terms. There is no legal problem about a person who is homosexual coming to Papua New Guinea as a settler. The problem is them practising their homosexuality...and being known to do so."
