Prime Minister Scott Morrison has seized on the proposed migration law amendments, which would make it easier for asylum seekers in offshore detention to get medical transfers to Australia, to argue Labor poses a "risk to our borders" and the government's hardline approach.

But four asylum seekers in Indonesia brought into question those claims in interviews with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Kandiha Kayuran, a Bangladeshi asylum seeker who has previously tried and failed to reach Australia by boat, as the attempt was stopped by Australian authorities, said the policy change would not spur another attempt.

Speaking from Kupang, a low security detention centre in West Timor, he said: “I would like to go to Australia, but legally."

Mr Kayuran welcomed the fact that asylum seekers on Nauru could potentially be able to access medical care more rapidly but said the change in Australia would not be a pull factor.

“That sounds like good news but no, I am not going there [Australia] unless I can go there legally.”

And in comments that will please Labor, which insists it is just as determined as the Morrison government to ensure that the flow of asylum seekers does not restart, Mr Kayuran said that “even if the [Australian] government changes, the policy is the same”.

The government avoided a humiliating defeat in the House of Representatives on the final parliamentary sitting day of the year, adjourning the chamber before the migration changes could be passed by the crossbench and Labor.

Mr Morrison said the proposal — which remains before the lower house, ready for the return of Parliament in February — would restart the boats and take Australia "back to the horror we saw" under the former Labor government, when thousands of asylum seekers reached Australia.

The amendments would wind back the discretionary powers of the immigration minister to reject medical transfers of asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus Island.

"That was not a bill and they were not changes the government was prepared to accept because it is watering down Australia's border protection" Mr Morrison told the Nine Network on Friday.

"I mean, yesterday Labor and the Greens combined together in the Senate to vote to abolish offshore processing as we know it."

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said a Labor government would maintain boat turnbacks and offshore processing.

"But if Mr Morrison is trying to argue that the only way you have borders, protections, is not to provide timely medical treatment to some asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru, that's rubbish," he said.

Mr Shorten said it was "reprehensible" that the government was broadcasting a message about people smugglers welcoming the prospect of Labor winning the election over a perceived softening of border policy.

"That is dangerous and reckless conduct and the government should be ashamed of themselves," he said.

Three other asylum seekers in West Jakarta agreed they did not wish to attempt a journey by boat to Australia, even if the policy on medical evacuations changed.

Mohammad Khan Nori, a 53-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan who once worked for the United States army as a driver and who fled his country — along with his wife and two children — because of the Taliban, agreed the boat journey was not worth it.

"I don't want to go to Australia illegally as it will endanger my life and my family's. I've been five years in Indonesia and I don't want to take risks by going illegally to Australia."

Ehsan Ehsani, a 70-year-old Afghan refugee who has been in Indonesia for three years and, like Mr Nori, was camped on the footpath outside a government immigration office, agreed.

"We respect the law [and] we don't want to go there illegally. Because it is too dangerous for my family and they will never forget the dangerous experience they will have in the sea."

Somali refugee Abdikadir Boor Ahmad who came to Indonesia in 2015 with his wife and three children said the journey by boat was too dangerous.

"I don't want to go to Australia illegally. Nobody wants to go there illegally, because it will be dangerous for us."

All of the men said they ultimately did want to resettle in Australia, but through legal means.

According to the UN refugee agency, there are about 14,000 asylum seekers in Indonesia.

With Karuni Rompies, Amilia Rosa