Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has been unable to rule out his department's involvement in the approval of a Nauruan visa for an Australian journalist.

The Australian associate editor Chris Kenny travelled to the island nation earlier this month, becoming the first foreign reporter to visit within 18 months.

Kenny has spoken about why he thought he gained approval for a visa — the cost of which rose to $8,000 in January last year — citing his public support for strong border protection measures.

There has been media speculation as to whether the Australian Government intervened in the process and Mr Dutton was unable to quash reports when asked on Wednesday.

He told the ABC that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection would have offered assistance, if it was seen to be appropriate.

"I'm not sure what assistance, if any, was provided," he said.

He said if undertaken, any intervention would have been above board.

"We have scores of people who answer journalists' queries each and every day," he said.

"We facilitate information to those people. We've done it in relation to questions that we answer regularly about operations on Nauru and Manus, so I wouldn't see anything inappropriate in that at all."

His comments followed news that a pregnant refugee who said she was raped on Nauru would return to Australia to talk to doctors about having an abortion.

Mr Dutton confirmed the transfer of the 23-year-old Somali woman, known as Abyan, but criticised the media coverage of her case.

"There is a lot of public commentary made, when frankly it's based on Twitter and Facebook postings, as opposed to the facts," he said.

"We haven't been contacted to provide information in relation to this case to outside agencies ... if people want to be properly informed in relation to these matters, they should rely on the facts as opposed to gossip and innuendo that they might read online."

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The Nauruan government also responded to coverage of Abyan's case and requests for more media transparency, and said that allowing journalists on the island would prompt asylum seekers to "protest and riot".

In a statement, justice minister David Adeang slammed the "ridiculous" questions put to the government.

"Nauru has no obligation to answer the Australian media," he said.

"The Australian media approaches us with great arrogance and an air of racial superiority, which is highly offensive to us.

"They do not show us the respect of a sovereign nation and, in return, we have little respect for them."

Mr Adeang further stated that Nauru was safe and "refugees are not being raped".

"But this truth doesn't suit the activist journalists," he said.