The Abbott government today announced a commitment to increase the existing refugee intake of 13,750 people to 18,750 by 2018.

The Government has confirmed the 12,000 places it announced today will come on top of that previous commitment.

"We will move very quickly, but everyone who is resettled in Australia will be subject to the usual security, health and character checks," said Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

"Our focus for these new 12,000 permanent resettlement places will be those people most in need of permanent protection — women, children and families from persecuted minorities who have sought refuge in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey... the most vulnerable of all."

What is not clear is how the places will be allocated given the suggestions by some in the Government that the focus of its intake ought to be minorities that are largely Christian. Government backbencher Cory Bernardi earlier endorsed that approach saying that "The most vulnerable people in the Middle East are persecuted Christians, women, children and families."

More than 200,000 people have been killed and an estimated 4 million have been forced from their homes amid fighting between Syrian President Assad's forces, Islamic State and other Islamist militants, and other rebel groups.

Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne indicated today that the Government was not focused on singling out one religious group in its grant of humanitarian visas.

"Religion is not the issue here, the issue is persecuted ethnic and religious minorities," he said.