On ABC's Q&A on Monday night, Tracey Donehue - a former teacher who said she worked on Nauru until November 2015 - described "appalling" instances of death threats levelled to students by guards. In one case, she said a "very large guard" lifted a student and threw them to the ground with force.

Ms Donehue said some of the reports she filed about the incidents were included in "The Nauru Files", a cache of more than 2000 leaked reports published by Guardian Australia.

"The government has again tried to absolve itself of responsibility," Ms Donehue said. "What do you think is the responsibility that the Australian government has for the refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru?"

Mr Fifield responded that, as his colleague, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, has made clear, some of the reports from Nauru are "without foundation".

"I don't think there's anything systematically wrong with the system of offshore detention," Mr Fifield said, as the studio audience jeered and one person shouted "shame".

"I'm sure that's a bipartisan view."

Labor's health spokeswoman Catherine King, who was also on the panel, said it was Australia's responsibility to make sure detainees are safe. She called on a senate inquiry into the detention system and for detainees to be rapidly resettled to third-party countries.

"Yes Labor agrees with offshore processing, but we don't agree with people being harmed in this way," she said.

"They are being treated badly, so then what are we going to do about it? That's the issue."

Asked if he would support a senate inquiry into detention centres, Mr Fifield said it wasn't his call as he wasn't the minister for immigration.

"What Peter Dutton has made clear is that those 2000-odd incidents which were cited will be investigated. It has to be acknowledged that not all those incidents are of equal significance," he said.

"No one in government, no one in the parliament, has any tolerance for people being treated badly."

Comedian Corinne Grant, an ambassador for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said there are 1313 men, women and children currently in offshore detention including an Afghan man who acted as an interpreter for Australian soldiers.

"Because of that, he watched his children get killed by the Taliban," Ms Grant said. "Instead of thanking him and protecting him, we have locked him up on Manus for three years so far."

Ms Grant said the government used instruments like the Australian Border Force Act - which makes it illegal for employees to publicly reveal information about detention centres - to keep information from the Australian public.

"The government is hoodwinking you," she said.

"They don't want you to know what's happening in these centres, because if you did - if you genuinely knew what was happening to these people - no one in Australia would allow it to continue to happen.

"Every one of those 1313 people would be brought to this country immediately if we really knew what was happening to them."