Julie Bishop and Peter Dutton differ over refugee swap deal

Julie Bishop and the US Vice-President Mike Pence in Washington this week.
Julie Bishop and the US Vice-President Mike Pence in Washington this week. Yuri Gripas

The Turnbull government is at odds with itself again, this time with ministers making conflicting statements about whether the refugee deal with the United States was part of a people swap.

The government has denied for months that the deal between Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama, in which the US would take refugees from Manus Island and Nauru, was linked to Mr Turnbull agreeing in September last year to take US-bound refugees housed in camps in Costa Rica.

But on Tuesday night, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton established a link when he said Australia "wouldn't take anyone (from Costa Rica) until we had assurances that people are going to go off Nauru and Manus".

When pressed as to whether this was quid pro quo, he said: "We want an outcome in relation to Nauru and Manus."

"It was beneficial to the US, and it was beneficial to us," Mr Dutton said, adding he did not have a problem if people wanted to characterise it as a people swap deal.

He said Australia wouldn't be "sucked into a silly outcome" such as the doomed Malaysia refugee deal struck under the Gillard government, which would have resulted in Australia taking in thousands of people but offloading nobody in return.

Hours later, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop slapped him down following a meeting in Washington with US Vice-President Mike Pence where the deal was discussed.

"No, I would not," she said when asked if she would characterise the deal as a people swap.

"That's not the way I would categorise it. Australia is a very generous nation when it comes to resettling those who are found to be refugees from all over the world. We'll continue to do so.

"We are seeking to resettle a number of people who came via the people-smuggling trade and have been in Nauru in particular with the United States. But we will continue to take refugees from across the world, as we've always done."

Earlier this month, when the refugee deal was the subject of a hostile phone call between Mr Turnbull and US president Donald Trump, Mr Dutton's office issued a statement refuting any suggestion of a link to the Costa Rica agreement.

It said the Costa Rica deal, agreed to when Mr Turnbull visited the United Nations in New York, was part of the Australia's history of cooperating with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration.

"The Australian government has rejected suggestions that this announcement forms part of a people swap arrangement with the United States. It is independent of the resettlement arrangement with respect to Nauru and Manus," the statement concluded.

And on September 21 in New York, after announcing the Costa Rica arrangement, Mr Turnbull emphatically denied any link to the possibility of the US taking people from Nauru and Manus Island.

"It's not linked to any other resettlement discussions. But clearly we are always working to find resettlement options for refugees and as you know Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop have worked tirelessly to find resettlement options and indeed have found resettlement options, for people in Manus and Nauru," he said.

"The announcement today is not connected to any other arrangements."

Labor's defence spokesman Richard Marles said it had been an open secret in diplomatic circles for months that there was a people swap deal and Mr Dutton had "belled the cat".

"Clearly this was a deal. Quid pro quo, one for the other, that is what happened last year. That's evidently what occurred, and yet we've had a government denying that from day one," he said.