The NGO previously responsible for providing care to children on Nauru says it supports a proposed refugee resettlement agreement with Canada.
Save the Children Australia (SCA) made the comments after Labor MP Anthony Albanese said on ABC's Q&A program that Canada was an "obvious" option for Australia's refugees.
When asked by the program's host if New Zealand would also be considered, Mr Albanese said "it might be".
SCA's director of policy and public affairs, Mat Tinkler, said staff knew from first-hand experience on Nauru "that the uncertainty and lack of hope for refugees and asylum seekers is doing serious damage to their health and wellbeing".
"The Australian government must be prepared to negotiate with countries like Canada as a potential permanent place of resettlement and protection for people who have fled persecution and conflict, and spent years detained in Nauru or Manus Island," he said.
"The Immigration Minister’s claim that giving these people a home in the 'first world' would 'put people smugglers back in business' is a disappointing reaction that does not appear to be grounded in fact.
"With the government’s regime of offshore processing and boat turnbacks in place, it is hard to see how settling vulnerable people in Canada who have spent years in detention will have this effect."
Bill Shorten this week praised Canada's resettlement program and said Australia's actions by contrast did "not look in any fashion heroic".
He said one of the first things he would do if elected prime minister would be to send Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles overseas to talk to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
"It is disgraceful that we haven’t had that sort of high-level dialogue to have regional resettlement," he said.
SCA staff removed from Nauru
In 2014, nine SCA workers on Nauru were abruptly sent back to Australia after they were accused of encouraging asylum seekers to self-harm, among other allegations. The claims were later revealed to be false.
In May 2016, the federal government paid compensation to SCA over the allegations but fell short of providing a full apology.
In a statement on its website, The Department for Immigration and Border Protection said that in ordering the removal of 10 SAC staff it had "relied on allegations that the staff had orchestrated protest activity, coached and encouraged self-harm of detainees, engaged in a campaign to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Government’s regional processing arrangements and misused and improperly disclosed sensitive and confidential information."
The department conceded it "did not provide SCA or any of the employees with detailed reasons for the removal direction" and acknowledged they had suffered detriment for which "the payment of money cannot be adequate compensation".
Labor's position
Speaking on Q&A this week, Mr Albanese said the volume of asylum seekers travelling to Australia towards the end of Labor's last term in office was "unsustainable".
"I believe that you can be tough on people smugglers without being weak on humanity," he said. "We want to stop the people smuggling trade. We don't want it to start up again, but we also want to treat people humanely."
Industry Minister Christopher Pyne, who joined Mr Albanese on the Q&A panel, said the most compassionate approach was to have a generous and orderly refugee system that looked after everyone, not just those who could pay people smugglers.
