Thousands of people have gathered in Sydney to demand the Australian government scrap its Papua New Guinea plan about processing and resettling asylum seekers, the Greens say.
Up to 3,000 people congregated at Sydney Town Hall before marching along George Street on Sunday to protest the government's handling of asylum seekers, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said.
"The purpose of today ... was to send a clear message that what they (the government) is doing is wrong," she told AAP after the rally.
"It's also to enable people to come together. There is a lot of stress in the community about how our country is treating people."
Ms Rhiannon said one of the topics raised during the protest was concerns over the use of the security firm G4S to run the Manus Island facility.
Describing the company as an "unaccountable multi-national", she said there were concerns among the community that the frontline staff aren't trained to deal with the problems already experienced at the centre.
She pointed to G4S's failure to provide all of the 10,400 contracted guards for the 2012 Games, which forced the British government to step in with military personnel.
The rally comes as a Galaxy poll published by News Corp Australia on Sunday found people rated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd better than Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at handling the asylum seeker issue, 40 to 38 per cent.
Under the federal government's deal with PNG, people arriving by boat will be denied resettlement in Australia, taken to Manus Island for processing and and may be settled there if found to be genuine refugees.
The Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) will be holding another rally in Sydney's inner west next month.
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