Kevin Rudd has been accused of rewriting history as senior Labor figures line up to reject his claim that asylum seekers held in offshore detention should have been resettled in Australia after a year.
The former prime minister has complained he's tired of being held to account for the coalition government prolonging a regime of offshore immigration detention which he initiated.
And while politicians bicker over who is responsible for those languishing in the island camps, refugees on Manus Island have learned they will begin leaving for the United States in October.
Marking the fourth year of offshore detention in Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, Mr Rudd argued his 2013 agreement was only meant to last a year.
"What Abbott did and what Turnbull has sustained is taken a 12-month agreement and made it into a permanent agreement," he told ABC radio on Thursday.
"The bottom line is, these poor folks should have been resettled in either New Zealand or Australia or elsewhere three years ago."
But Labor frontbencher Richard Marles says that wouldn't have been the case.
"It is absolutely critical that Australia be off the table," he told Sky News.
"What Kevin says now and what he tweets now is a matter for him."
In 2013, Mr Rudd said asylum seekers who arrived by boat would have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees.
Former cabinet colleague Anthony Albanese said the plan was for refugees to be resettled in PNG or another country within a year.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Mr Rudd was either misleading the Australian people in 2013, is doing so now, or perhaps both.
He dismissed as wrong and deceptive the former prime minister's claim asylum seekers would only have been detained for 12 months.
"What does he want us to believe - that somehow these people were just going to magically disappear after a 12-month period?"
Mr Dutton conceded he would have preferred refugees on Manus Island left sooner than October, with the detention centre closing that month.
"Our desire was obviously to have them off tomorrow; I want Manus Island to close. We're still going to maintain Nauru," he told Sky News.
"We have been caught up in the US process; they have a quota each year."
President Donald Trump slashed the US refugee intake from 110,000 people to 50,000 and the cap was reached last week.
"Their year finishes on September 30, so we've now been pushed into October in terms of when people will move," Mr Dutton said.
More than 1600 refugees have expressed interest in the US resettlement deal, which is expected to offer up to 1250 places.
Mr Dutton expects the US will take about 1200 people.
Decommissioning of the Manus Island refugee processing centre is under way, with a nearby transit centre being expanded.
Australia will stop offering help to refugees voluntarily returning to their home countries on August 31.
