A plan to free asylum seekers from Australia's processing centre on Nauru to move around the island may have been ruined by a riot that left the facility in ruins.
The detention centre was all but burned to the ground a week ago, when a large group of asylum seekers torched a health centre, accommodation blocks, offices and cars.
Only the kitchen and recreation facility remained following the blaze, with the damage estimated at $60 million.
Nauru's government said on Friday it would take around six months for the facility to be rebuilt.
"Australia hasn't asked for changes and we haven't put any forward, so yes, it's business as usual," Nauru's acting president, David Adeang, said in a statement.
More than 500 of the 544 asylum seekers on the centre are believed to have taken part in the riot.
Nauru was expected to open the facility to allow asylum seekers freedom to move around on the island.
But Mr Adeang says last week's riot may see that decision reversed.
"If the figures are correct, that more than 500 are involved, that will hinder any decision of an open camp," he said.
"They (asylum seekers) break our laws and they will face our laws."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says capacity at Australia's other regional processing centre on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island had already been swamped, even before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his so-called PNG Solution.
Eleven boats with 844 people on board have arrived since Mr Rudd announced last week that Australia would no longer accept asylum seekers arriving by boat, but would instead send them to PNG.
"Mr Rudd can talk and talk and talk, but the boats just come and come and come," Mr Abbott told reporters in Launceston.
Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare admits arrivals are likely to continue for the immediate future.
"Every lie you can think of is now being told to encourage people to get on to boats," Mr Clare said.
"That's why you can expect more boats to come over the next few weeks."
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees declared it was "troubled" by the PNG deal, pointing to a lack of protections and safeguards.
Mr Abbott says people smugglers wouldn't take Labor's new policy seriously until asylum seekers were actually sent to PNG.
Mr Abbott's own policy is to bring all 12 agencies involved in border protection into a single border protection task force to be headed by a three-star military commander.
But it's come under fire from the defence chief who was in charge of turning back asylum seeker boats under John Howard.
Retired Rear Admiral Chris Barrie says the plan amounts to simply shuffling arrangements in Canberra.
"By adding another three-star to the six three-stars we already have, all we're doing is paying somebody to do a job that could already be done effectively anyway if we tried a little harder," he told ABC radio.
"How is that actually going to affect the numbers of people coming to Australia? It's still trying to solve a problem at the wrong end of the equation."
