Australia is in talks with the Philippines about resettling refugees now on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has confirmed.
There are reports Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was told by her Philippine counterpart in New York last week that a $150 million deal would go ahead, even though it has yet to be signed-off by President Benigno Aquino.
Mr Dutton has declined to say how many refugees could be sent to the Philippines or on a timeframe for sealing a deal.
"We have had bilateral discussions with other countries, including the Philippines at an officials level and ministerial level over a number of months," he told reporters in Canberra on Friday.
Asked about the security risk in the Philippines, where there is a high threat of kidnappings, terrorist attacks and violent crime, Mr Dutton said resettlement was voluntary.
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"Considering all of the facts the person will take up that offer or reject it," he said.
Australia already has a refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia, at a cost of $55 million, but so far only four refugees on Nauru have opted to go.
Labor is giving in-principle support to negotiations with the Philippines because it backs a regional solution to refugee resettlement.
But leader Bill Shorten has some misgivings.
"We are worried that the Liberals tend to announce their achievements before they have actually occurred," he told reporters in Tasmania.
"We certainly don't want a repeat of the Cambodia debacle where each refugee seems to have cost over $10 million to resettle - that is not good economics."
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the Philippines was the next poor country Australia wanted to bribe to take the refugees.
"It's a trade of human lives and it's time the minister was upfront about it," she told reporters in Sydney.
