Updated 2.30pm: The Prime Minister's being asked if the country's intelligence agencies have been monitoring potential asylum seekers.

The question's coming from Green Party Co-Leader Metiria Turei who wants to know if the GCSB and SIS were involved in tracking a boat headed for New Zealand carrying 65 people.

"If our spies agencies have been used by the New Zealand or Australian agencies to track them to turn them away, then those spy agencies are potentially acting in breach of the convention."

The boat was told to return to Indonesia by Australian officials after being alerted by the New Zealand Government.

The Refugee Council say the National Government have an aversion to refugees that Labour once welcomed with open arms.

Vice President Colin Henry said comparing the actions of the Labour Government to National show a stark difference in attitudes:

"We seem to have some sort of fear, different from the time when the Tampa was in trouble, and we extended the hand of humanity and took in quite a number of them."

Labour and New Zealand First have both recently backed calls to raise the quota of refugees taken in by New Zealand each year. It currently sits at 750. When Labour were most recently in government, between 1999 and 2008, they did not raise the quota.

However, John Key does not support raising the refugee quota, saying we let in "just the right number" of refugees.

Amnesty International New Zealand Executive Director Grant Bayldon said the refugee boat that was turned around carried desperate people.

"People don't get on board dangerous boats and take really terrifying journeys just to joyride. They do it because they are fleeing human rights and war."

He added that the idea of a crisis caused by a large influx of refugees did not stand up to scrutiny.

"You need to look at countries like Lebanon where there have been over a million refugees flee the war in Syria, and still not close their borders to people in dire need."

Collin Henry agrees, saying New Zealand "has an international legal obligation to accept persons fleeing persecution when they come to our shores."