A promise by a group of asylum seekers in Nauru to not skip to Australia if New Zealand were to accept them has had cold water poured on it by New Zealand's Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters.
The group of 27 refugees sent a letter to the New Zealand Prime Minister's office this week asking to be taken in if they swore not to treat New Zealand as a backdoor to Australia.
Australia has so far declined New Zealand's offer to take 150 of the detainees from Nauru and Manus Island out of fears the move would be used as a propaganda tool by people smugglers.
Mr Peters on Tuesday said the notion of taking in refugees with different travel conditions to other citizens isn't straight forward.
"Unfortunately our citizenship still has those rights or otherwise you're going to offer them a second-class citizenship," he told reporters.
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Mr Peters - the leader of the populist NZ First Party which last year campaigned on large-scale immigration cuts - said decades ago he had warned New Zealand was being used a "bolt-hole" to Australia with the consequences now being seen.
The issue of on-travelling was raised in May by Australia's immigration and border security secretary Michael Pezzullo as a key issue to taking up New Zealand's offer.
But at that time New Zealand Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said Australia was free to stop asylum seekers from travelling across the ditch if it wanted to.
Responding to the refugee's letter in a statement this week, he said: "The [government's] offer remains, our position hasn't changed".
The Australian government has said it wants to prioritise an agreement with the US over the New Zealand offer.
But while the US has agreed to take in up to 1250 people from detention centres, its travel ban means refugees from five Muslim-majority countries - who make up a large chunk of those originally headed for Australia - may be rejected.
More than 300 people have already been transferred to the US, but another 1500 remain in offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru.
Mr Peters said New Zealand's government had not considered bypassing Australia and dealing with Papua New Guinea or Nauru directly.
