The UNHCR says it's troubled by Australia's new policy to settle refugees in Papua New Guinea, saying there are not adequate protection standards and safeguards in place.
The agency is also critical of the coalition's policy to turn back asylum boats, a policy which Indonesia continues to oppose.
The UN refugee agency's criticisms come as the federal government says asylum boats are likely to keep arriving in the coming weeks.
Inadequate standards and safeguards, lack of capacity and expertise in processing, as well as poor physical conditions on Manus Island.
They're some of observations from the UNHCR after it carried out a review of the federal government's new policy to resettle refugees in Papua New Guinea.
The UN refugee agency says it's raised its concerns in talks this week with Australian government representatives in Canberra and Geneva.
The arrangement with PNG is designed as a deterrent measure, but so far it's failed to discourage people making the hazardous boat journey towards Australia.
Hundreds more asylum seekers have arrived in the Christmas Island area since the announcement was made last week.
The Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare has told Channel Nine this is because people smugglers are lying to the asylum seekers about the PNG deal.
"The latest reports that I've got is that people smugglers are telling people in Indonesia now - and remember, you've got thousands of people in Indonesia who've bought tickets already - they're saying 'get on a boat now before the first plane goes to PNG, or this won't go through the parliament, it won't survive the High Court, every lie you can think of is now being told to encourage people to get onto boats."
But the UNHCR says the fact that the boats are still coming shows deterrent measures in and of themselves just don't work.
That's an argument that's often advanced by refugee advocates who say asylum seekers fleeing life-threatening situations won't be put off by such measures.
Richard Towle is the UNHCR's regional representative.
"We've always found, borne out of may years of experience, that tough deterrence measures on their own won't be effective. I think to some extent we're seeing that in the way things are playing out recently. We've always said that deterrent measures and cooperation around countering people smuggling and trafficking movements also has to be accompanied by efforts to provide humanitarian and protection opportunities for people other than coming by boat and that's why we think that a stronger investment in South East Asia to expand and improve the protection environment in those places, closer bilateral and multi-state cooperation around finding solutions for refugees in the region can actually ease the pressure of onward movement."
Australia's politicians often talk of the need for a regional solution where there's greater co-operation between Australia and its neighbours.
But Richard Breen from the Refugee Action Collective says the focus should be on what he calls an Australian solution.
"I mean Indonesia hasn't signed the Refugee Convention, people who are registered refugees have no right to work, no right to education, no right to their children to have education. It's an incredibly difficult life. Papua New Guinea has signed the convention but with several restrictions so it gives no right to work, no right to education, no right to freedom of movement. These are immensely concerning things. It would not be difficult for Australia to deal with this problem as an Australian solution."
The UNHCR says it's also still troubled with the Coalition's proposal to turn back asylum seeker boats.
Richard Towle says it's a policy that puts Australia at risk of breaching international law.
"The breach of international law is that you cannot refoul or expel a person to a place where their safety and security and persecution might take place. Now, if you turn back a boat without any effort to assess whether people need refugee protection or not then there is a high risk that refoulement can take place unless you can be satisfied that they're being returned to a place where there are proper safeguards in place for the assessment of protection needs and that's why we think the natural corollary to this, these kinds of arrangements must be bilateral agreement between countries to receive and process somewhere else, unilateral action in this area is operationally difficult but also can easily run foul of international law."
When attempts have been made to turn back boats in the past, asylum seekers have sometimes sabotaged them and people have died.
So what does the Coalition think about the possibility of more deaths at sea if it wins goverment and implements this policy?
It's a question that was put to the opposition's immigration spokesman Scott Morrison on the ABC.
"People are dying now, the government's current policies, people are dying now. There is incredible risk with everything you do out there and what we've announced today is put in place the right sort of structure which helps us (Interviewer) But you factored in…(Morrison) I'm trying to finish the answer if you'll let me do it, this policy, this structure helps us manage that risk to the best possible advantage for everybody because when decisions are taken on good information with clear decision making authorities and clear chains of command then you make good decisions and you manage the risk well."
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