Nauru's president claims advocates areto skip work on the island to become full-time protesters.
Baron Waqa said he's immensely distraught by recent acts of self-harm that included two refugees setting themselves on fire.
"My message to refugees here on Nauru is to accept they are here and to understand the government of Nauru is doing its best to look after them and keep them safe," he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he grieves for hundreds of asylum seekers in detention camps on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
But that doesn't mean the prime minister is about to change Australia's hard-line border protection stance and offshore processing regime.
"The misery that many of those people are in, the mental anguish that many of them are in is something that we sympathise with, we grieve for them," Mr Turnbull told Fran Kelly on ABC radio when asked about the intense desperation that was leading to asylum seekers "killing themselves".
He acknowledged the policy was tough but the alternative was to have thousands drown at sea again.
Mr Turnbull echoed Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's view that refugee advocates should stop giving false hope of resettlement in Australia.
Doing so influenced self-harm attempts, the pair argue.
A Somali refugee remains in a critical condition in a Brisbane hospital after setting herself alight on Nauru, a week after an Iranian man died from injuries he sustained in a similar incident.
Meanwhile, officials from Australia and Papua New Guinea are still working on a plan to deal with the closure of the Manus Island detention centre and the fate of hundreds of asylum seekers.
PNG has flagged it wants to close down the facility after a Supreme Court ruled the centre was illegal.
"The two governments agreed to continue to work together on a roadmap that would ensure the Papua New Guinea government's compliance with the court's orders," a joint statement from both nations said.
