PAPUA NEW GUINEA – On Monday, PNG’s supreme court rule detention of asylum seekers and refugees to be unconstitutional and illegal, and ordered its end “forthwith”.

The following day the PNG government announced the centre would close and that Australia must find alternative arrangements for people who did not settle in the country.

In response the Australian government said detainees were “PNG’s problem”, and that the supreme court ruling did not bind Australia.

The two governments are now at loggerheads over the issue.

Christmas Island and Nauru have been raised as possible destinations for the men, but the government has refused to entertain this beyond saying that Nauru had “capacity”.

Dutton has suggested Manus could remain open in some altered form, and for a brief time on Friday the internal gates between compounds were open.

Detainees reported elation at their newfound “freedom”, including an end to body searches, but on Friday afternoon it appeared the decision was reversed.

Detainees say internal gates have been locked again and phones banned.

The Manus Island detention centre is made up of internally-secured accommodation compounds, which for the past two weeks have been used to separate detainees based on whether their refugee claims had succeeded.

A move to a fully open centre on Manus would seem to be an impossibility, because the detention centre is within a PNG naval base. Those held inside would not be allowed free movement in and out.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said his Government had been in discussions with New Zealand but stressed it was unlikely that the detainees would be sent there.

New Zealand has said its offer to accept 150 refugees from Australia each year – an agreement with the Gillard government which Australia has since abandoned – still stands.

New Zealand had offered to resettle 300 refugees as part of a two-year deal with Australia, signed in 2013 by former prime minister Julia Gillard.

But Australia has rejected this, Dutton saying a move to New Zealand would be a “backdoor to Australia and a green light to people smugglers”.

Turnbull said settlement in a country like New Zealand “would be used by the people smugglers as a marketing opportunity.”

Dutton further dampened speculation, describing the deal made by the Gillard government as “a back door way to get into Australia”.

“What Labor had proposed was to allow people to go to New Zealand, gain New Zealand citizenship and then, as a right under visa arrangements with New Zealand, settle in Australia,” he said.

“It was going to do nothing other than encourage people smugglers to get back into business.”

Both Turnbull and Dutton have couched the debate in terms of national security.

“We can’t afford to let the empathy that we feel for the desperate circumstances many people find themselves in to cloud our judgment,” Turnbull told radio station 3AW on Thursday morning.

“Our national security has to come first.”

Speaking to the ABC on Tuesday, Dutton said national security was an important issue “particularly in this day and age”.

“We’re going to make sure that our borders remain secure so that we can keep our community in Australia as safe as possible.”

Australian officials will travel to PNG next week to try to resolve the issue. There is still no timeframe for the centre’s closure, and PNG Immigration authorities said they were still seeking legal advice about how to proceed.

Next week the Manus detention regime faces a fresh legal challenge, with the possibility the supreme court in Port Moresby could order that the men held on Manus Island be compensated for their three years of illegal detention.

PNG lawyer Ben Lomai said he would make an application to the Supreme Court to have the men sent to Australia and compensated $100,000 each.

- PNC