Govt wants regional response to refugees

The federal government is set to boost assistance to two key international refugee agencies to meet the challenge of a surge in asylum seekers across the region.

As negotiations continued with Indonesia to find a strategy for dealing with an influx of asylum seekers heading for Australia, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Canberra would increase its efforts to push for a more regional approach.

The comments came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was set to discuss the problem of people smuggling and asylum seekers with other leaders at the East Asia Summit which began in Thailand on Sunday.

"In the course of the East Asia Summit the prime minister will be speaking to his counterparts throughout the region," Mr Smith said.

"But also importantly we're looking at what more assistance we can be to two relevant institutions operating in this area, in Indonesia and in our region - the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and International Organisation for Migration (IOM)."

"We're looking at what more we can do to meet this heightened challenge."

The opposition said it supported additional funding for both organisations.

"The coalition helped fund those two agencies, too," opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said.

But Dr Stone warned that providing additional funding to help with the processing of asylum seekers in places like Indonesia would do nothing to address people smuggling.

"You have to have that expenditure right up the smuggling channels back in to places like Pakistan and Afghanistan," Dr Stone said.

"This government has got to look beyond Indonesia and right back to the sources of the frustrated asylum seekers that leave those countries and don't come through the legitimate pathways."

Mr Smith said Canberra and Jakarta needed to work more closely together, including increasing the sharing of intelligence on people smugglers.

"We've got to do more together to address those challenges, and they're the discussions which are currently under way between Australian officials and Indonesian officials.

"We need to have in our view greater cooperation so far as intelligence sharing is concerned, greater cooperation so far as disruption to people smugglers' efforts are concerned."

Negotiations on a deal that would see asylum seekers headed for Australia processed on Indonesian soil were also continuing, he said.

The deal is yet to be finalised. The plan is reportedly expected to cost $50 million.

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said the federal government should reveal details of any deal struck with Indonesia.

"Australians deserve to know how much this will cost, and how much Australian taxpayers are being asked to foot in terms of the bill," she told reporters in Perth.

The so-called "Indonesia solution" is expected to be discussed when Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visits Australia next month.

But the Rudd government is under pressure over the plan amid reports asylum seekers being held in Australian-funded detention facilities in Indonesia have been subjected to physical abuse including beatings.

Conditions in the camps are much harsher than what asylum seekers detained on the Australian mainland and on Christmas Island experience.

Mr Rudd said he was unaware of the reports.

"Secondly, in terms of facilities with Indonesia, my advice is they are subject to regular visitation by the IOM ... including the provision of a range of services by the IOM, including medical advice."

Dr Stone said Mr Rudd and the Labor government must take responsibility for the treatment of asylum seekers held in Australian-funded facilities in Indonesia.

"He knows that as a developing country Indonesia has very different standards of detention facilities.

"When Australia placed a detention facility on Manus Island, we didn't then at the same time say to PNG you now have complete responsibility for the detainees and the conditions of those detention centres, nor was that the case in Nauru."