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Prime minister rejects accusation that regime for refugees and asylum seekers is ‘torture’ and says offshore processing is an essential deterrent to stop people trying to get to Australia by boat Malcolm Turnbull has rejected an Amnesty International report condemning Australia’s offshore detention regime on Nauru as akin to torture and an “open-air prison”. In an interview on Radio National on Tuesday, Turnbull blamed refugee advocates for encouraging refugees to refuse to return to their country of origin and claimed offshore detention was necessary to prevent drownings at sea.

The Amnesty International report, based on researchers’ visits to Nauru in July, found that refugees and and asylum seekers are attacked with impunity, healthcare is inadequate or non-existent and suicide attempts, including among children, are common.

Asked if conditions amounted to torture, Turnbull replied: “Well, I reject that claim totally, it is ... absolutely false. “That allegation, that accusation, is rejected by the government.”

Turnbull said the government had substantially invested in health, welfare and education facilities on Nauru.

Broadcaster Fran Kelly asked about cases including a nine-year-old locked up for 1,179 days and a 17-year-old from Myanmar featured on ABC’s Four Corners who was too scared to attend school on Nauru.

“We are supporting the government of Nauru in terms of their security measures,” he said.

Turnbull said it was a “very sad story” but added there were “1,200 voices that were silenced, that cannot go on Four Corners, that cannot talk on Radio National because they drowned at sea”.

“And I just note that the minister, [Peter] Dutton, offered to go onto to the Four Corners program and be interviewed live to deal with those allegations and that offer was rejected.”

Turnbull refused to reveal details of negotiations to find a country for third-party resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers.

“But the truth is ... there are many people in Australia who say to the people on Nauru, ‘don’t accept any offer to go anywhere else, because eventually you will be able to come to Australia’,” he said.

“I just want to say to anybody in that situation, you will not come to Australia.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the prime minister defended the government’s proposed same-sex marriage plebiscite but refused to say what the government would do if the Senate blocks the non-binding vote as is widely expected.

Asked what the government would do when the bill to establish the marriage plebiscite was voted down in the Senate, Turnbull said it was an assertion that it would fail.

Labor, the Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team, Derryn Hinch and the government’s own senator Dean Smith have promised to vote it down, sufficient to defeat it.

“Experience tells me that you don’t know what the numbers are until the votes are finally counted,” Turnbull said.

He said it was a “perfectly reasonable argument to say [the plebiscite] is not consistent with our parliamentary tradition” but maintained support for it because it is “perfectly democratic”.

Turnbull criticised opponents of the plebiscite, who he said were delaying same-sex marriage on the basis of “process only”.

When asked about reports David Leyonhjelm could attempt to trade his vote on the Australian Building and Construction Commission for looser gun laws, Turnbull did not rule out a deal but stressed Australians supported tight gun laws.

Turnbull said he would not engage in negotiations on radio and would instead deal respectfully with crossbench senators.

“The regulation of firearms is dealt with by COAG ... and so the importation ban on the lever-action Adler shotgun ... was introduced and has been maintained because of a failure to date of that state and territory group to reach a resolution on it,” he said.

Turnbull stressed that since the Port Arthur massacre and gun buyback Australians supported strong restrictions on firearms.

Turnbull also called for parliament to pass industrial relations bills to be introduced and debated this week, describing a proposed tougher building regulator as “economy-boosting” not “union-busting”.

Turnbull said the ABCC was necessary to “restore the rule of law” in the construction sector, citing 113 construction union officials facing court over industrial law breaches.

He said “thuggery” on construction sites was adding up to 30% of “additional costs” to the construction of housing, a figure far in excess of the 9.4% productivity improvement claimed in a report commissioned by the former ABCC and Master Builders Australia.