Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says Australian officials have contacted the family of a Tamil asylum seeker explaining visa processes so they can travel to Australia to attend his funeral.
But a spokesman for the Tamil Refugee Council said on Saturday that no one from the Australian Immigration department has been in touch with the family in India.
Asylum seeker Leorsin Seemanpillai, 29, died last Sunday after dousing himself in petrol and setting himself alight in Geelong.
Refugee advocates say the Tamil feared being returned to Sri Lanka because he thought he faced persecution from authorities.
The government has offered to return his body to Sri Lanka or India.
But immediate family who live in a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu in southern India say they fear for their safety if the funeral is held in either country. They are seeking visas to attend the funeral in Australia.
Mr Morrison acknowledged that they face very real difficulties.
He said the department had explained to them the process of application for a short-term visitor visa to travel to Australia, including the need for travel documents.
That process was very clear and it would be up to the immigration department to assess their application.
"It's not available to the minister to instruct the department in issuing a visitor visa in circumstances like these and they will have to apply the law as it stands," he told ABC radio.
Tamil Refugee Council spokesman Aran Mylvaganam said he had spoken to Mr Seemanpillai's father on Saturday, specifically asking if anyone from the Australian Immigration department had contacted him to explain how to obtain a visa.
The only Australian officials they had heard from were the Victorian refugee assistance group AMES, which offered to pay funeral costs, and the coroner's office in Melbourne.
"Either Morrison is getting the wrong advice from his department or he is simply trying to misinform the Australian people," he said in a statement.
"Whatever is the case, it is an absolute disgrace that he won't intervene to help this family in a moment of dire need."
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