An asylum-seeker baby temporarily spared from being returned to Nauru will ultimately end up there, the immigration minister says.
Baby Asha has been released into community detention after doctors at Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital engaged in a 10-day stand off with the government.
They refused to release the one-year-old until they could be assured she was going to an acceptable home environment, and protesters opposed to the offshore detention of children staged a round-the-clock vigil outside the hospital.
Supporters have welcomed the government's decision to temporarily put the child in community detention in Australia.
But Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says it's the government's intention to return the child to Nauru, once legal and medical issues are resolved.
"People will go back to Nauru," he told ABC radio.
"We are not going to allow people smugglers to get out a message that if you seek assistance in an Australian hospital, that somehow that is your formula to becoming an Australian citizen."
He said police were investigating how the child came to suffer burns while in immigration detention on Nauru.
A small number of protesters remain at the hospital, saying they want to keep the spotlight on the issue of children in offshore immigration detention.
Natasha Blucher, a former Nauru detention centre caseworker and family advocate, said she had spoken to Asha's father, and he was incredibly grateful to those who had taken a stand for his family.
"It's astounding what can be achieved when the community stands together to demand that a family be treated with humanity," she told ABC radio.
"I've spoken with Asha's father and he'd like to pass on his immense gratitude for everything that Australia has done to protect his baby, his wife and his family."
Australian Medical Association president Brian Owler has pointed to the strong body of evidence that detaining children causes them harm, and says Baby Asha is now the face of a shameful practice.
"What baby Asha's case has done is really put some perspective for the public, giving at least one child a face and a name," he told ABC radio.
"I do hope public opinion is starting to change."
But Mr Dutton hit back at activists accusing some of using the opportunity to promote their own "media profiles".
He said the government ultimately wanted all children out of detention.
Protesters who've spent more than a week at the hospital are planning an appreciation rally for doctors on Monday evening.
"We feel like the tide is turning on this issue and people now know Nauru is not the place for vulnerable men, women and children," Get Up campaigner Ellen Roberts told AAP.
"We'll be keeping pressure on government, and we encourage people to contact local MPs."
