Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has accused Prime Minister Julia Gillard of "outsourcing" her job by appointing a committee to find a solution to the asylum seeker issue.
Parliament broke for the long winter break on Thursday after failing to agree on a compromise bill that would have allowed the government to implement its people-swap deal with Malaysia and permit the reopening of a detention centre on Nauru.
Ms Gillard appointed former defence chief Angus Houston to lead an independent expert group to examine asylum policy and deliver a report on a way forward by the time parliament resumes on August 14.
"This committee is not a solution; this is outsourcing the prime ministership," Mr Abbott told the Nine Network on Friday.
He said a solution could have been worked out if Ms Gillard had agreed to a compromise that would have allowed offshore processing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
"She failed because she wanted a different position, one that the parliament clearly was never going to support," he told the Nine Network on Friday.
He said over the six-week parliamentary break the prime minister could "do nothing or she could do something".
"What she can do and should do is get cracking with building those centres at Nauru and PNG," he said.
"If legislation is really needed to do that, that legislation will be passed as soon as parliament comes back in August."
Mr Abbott said he had called the prime minister's office around 1pm on Wednesday to discuss the issue. He spoke to Ms Gillard's chief of staff, "but no she (Ms Gillard) didn't take my call".
Ms Gillard, in announcing the committee on Thursday, promised to take whatever the group recommends on board, even if it came out against her government's proposed Malaysian deal.
The government wants legal authority to send 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia for processing in exchange for taking 4000 processed refugees.
The issue took on urgency after two asylum-seeker boats capsized this week, including one in which an estimated 90 people died.
Environment Minister Tony Burke has stopped short of saying the government would implement all the recommendations by the expert panel but said its counsel would be "highly influential".
"I don't think you go down this process without the intention that what they come back with is going to make a very big difference," Mr Burke told Network Seven on Friday.
But he said the government needed to ensure the advice given by the expert panel would get through the parliament.
