Call for unity in push for solution

TWO key crossbench MPs have called for co-operation to break the political impasse over asylum-seeker policy.

TWO key crossbench MPs have called for co-operation to break the political impasse over asylum-seeker policy, while a prominent lawyer has called for a focus on processing asylum-seekers in their home countries.

West Australian National Tony Crook, who scuttled Julia Gillard's bid to push amendments to the Migration Act through the lower house of parliament, said Saturday's tragedy off the coast of Indonesia showed "there needs to be a solution" to the stalemate between Labor and the Coalition.

He said offshore processing was needed as a deterrent to stop people from risking their lives on boats. "Clearly this latest tragedy has highlighted that we need to have something in place," he said.

"There is bipartisan support for offshore processing and it is now down to the government and the opposition to work through a process."

Mr Crook said he still believed he had made the right decision to withhold support for the government's Malaysia Solution, but he said an alternative was needed.

"It's not just about Malaysia or Nauru; it's about finding a country where we can facilitate offshore processing as a deterrent to ensure that these people don't take the risks, to secure our borders and to stop the people that profit from this," he said.

Country independent Rob Oakeshott criticised former Labor leader Mark Latham and others for seeking to spearhead a policy discussion on the heels of a tragedy. "I think it's pretty cheap if anyone is using the deaths of anyone to have a policy debate," he said. "Hopefully it doesn't take a tragedy to develop good policy."

But Mr Oakeshott said it was clear that the issue of asylum-seeker policy still needed to be resolved by parliament.

He called on the Prime Minister and Tony Abbott to look again at how the Bali process could be used to create a regional framework for managing the flow of asylum-seekers.

Mr Oakeshott said he believed that offshore processing had a role to play within a broader regional solution but "not as a unilateral measure on its own".

The comments came as refugee lawyer Marion Le called on the government to direct more resources to processing asylum-seekers in their home countries.

Ms Le, a forthright critic of the Gillard government's Malaysia Solution and of Nauru, said the best way to deter people from getting on boats and risking their lives would be to improve processes in Indonesia and Malaysia, and further afield in the Middle East.