Greens candidate Matt Parmeter said the current government's policies "contribute to immense human suffering, and even to some deaths", but The Nationals candidate and incumbent MP Mark Coulton said current policies had resulted in fewer deaths than under the previous Labor government.

Online Direct Democracy (ODD) candidate John Ayton has also outlined his party's stance on the issue.

"The 'stop the boats at all costs' attitude certainly does not reflect the values of a fair go, or any considerations of basic humanity," Mr Parmeter said in a statement.

"The Coalition government has sunken to a new low with their insensitive and irresponsible response to the latest tragedies, with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton blaming refugee advocates, rather than his government's policies, for such horrifying self-harm incidents at Nauru."

But Mr Coulton said Mr Parmeter's comments were "irresponsible and ill-informed".

"In 2008 I sat in Parliament while the Greens and Labor changed our refugee policy," Mr Coulton said.

"Since that legislation changed 50,000 showed up on our shores in leaky boats, over 1000 people drowned at sea and many thousands were ripped off by people smugglers. "Since we've come to government in the last couple of years we've had no one drown at sea and we've had no illegal boat arrivals but we've brought in 17,000 refugees and we've added an extra 12,000 people from Syria."

Mr Parmeter has called for Australians to stop and seriously contemplate our treatment of refugees, following the death last month of Iranian asylum seeker Omid Masoumali.

"Australia needs to lead a bold regional solution like we have before in the past, such as when we embarked on an ambitious resettlement program when we resettled tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War," Mr Parmeter said.

"We can do it again. We can treat people the way we would want to be treated while saving lives in our region and enriching our nation."

But Mr Coulton said it was a different time, with many more displaced people in the world today than there were after the Vietnam War.

"The sooner we get those people out of detention the better but we're not going to go back to reopening the doors because the people smugglers are waiting for the nod to start again," Mr Coulton said.

"I don't want it on my conscience when more women and children are drowning at sea because they've been taken advantage of by unscrupulous people smugglers."

Mr Ayton said the ODD party would prefer to reach a consensus within the electorate, through their online survey platform Pollyweb, before making a decision on refugee policy.

"There are a number of variables with such a bold plan, that it would be irresponsible to force a policy decision upon the regional electorates without a clear consensus from those regions that may be impacted," Mr Ayton said.

"Considerations would be long-term economic, social and cultural impacts to be considered just to highlight the obvious.

"The ODD party would take a systematic approach to polling the electorates, to gauge the people stance prior to offering policy solutions."