Jakarta is set to plead with Canberra at regional talks next week to take more refugees who are stranded in Indonesia.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton are travelling to Indonesia for the Bali Process meeting on March 22-23 which is focused on combating people-smuggling.
The regional forum of 45 asylum seeker source, transit and destination countries comes at a difficult time diplomatically for the federal government.
There is ongoing tension with Indonesia over Australia's controversial boat turn-back policy, with the latest turn-back about a fortnight ago.
Mr Dutton has confirmed that 25 boats have been returned to Indonesia since the coalition came to power in 2013.
There are 13,188 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UN's refugee arm in Jakarta and Indonesia is quietly pushing for Australia to accept more of them.
"It is an issue that we hope to see discussed during the meeting," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told the Jakarta Post.
Australia announced two years ago that it wouldn't resettle any refugees registered with the UN in Indonesia after July 1, 2014.
It also took 450 refugees from Indonesia in the 2014-15 financial year, 150 fewer than the previous two years.
The policy stopped Australia from helping out southeast Asian neighbours last year during an asylum seeker boat stand-off crisis involving Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
The fate of 1000 Rohingya asylum seekers from Myanmar (Burma), who landed in Aceh last year, is also likely to be discussed at the meeting.
Indonesia has only agreed to shelter the asylum seekers until May this year.
Also on the agenda is how countries can better exchange information during emergency migration crises, through the use of special hotlines between foreign ministries as well as sharing biometric data or facial images and fingerprints.
A controversial deal European Union leaders struck with Turkey, intended to halt illegal migration flows in return for financial and political rewards for Ankara, is also expected to be discussed.
Ms Bishop will meet with her Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi for bilateral talks ahead of the regional forum.
There will be thirteen ministers at the Bali Process talks including from the Netherlands, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan and Afghanistan.
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