In the wake of the attacks in Paris, Federal Cabinet Minister Scott Morrison says he expects Christians will be the focus of the Australian government's Syrian refugee program.

When former prime minister Tony Abbott first announced Australia would take in 12,000 extra refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, some members of his party called on him to give Christian refugees priority.

But the Department of Immigration was quick to clarify this would not be the case.

The head of the government's Syrian Refugee Resettlement Task Force, Peter Vardos, told the ABC that Christians would not be given priority to be resettled in Australia.

"There is no selection based purely on religion, as has been suggested in some quarters," Mr Vardos said recently while on a trip to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.

"It is a non-discriminatory program across the board. And I am confident that by the end of this process when you look at the make-up of the 12,000 people they will come from a range of ethnicities and religions."

However, Mr Morrison told Macquarie Radio yesterday: "We are focusing on those persecuted minorities and that obviously includes a very large Christian component. In fact the majority, I would expect."

A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton did not distance themselves from Mr Morrison's comments, telling the ABC the Treasurer's comments "are in line with the Government's focus".

The spokesperson went on to say: "The Government has announced its priorities and made it clear that we are going to focus on those who are most vulnerable, i.e. women, children and families with the least prospect of ever returning safely to their homes."

UNHCR perplexed by governments' demands for Christian refugees

Mr Morrison's comments came after up to 25 states in America said they would refuse to take in Syrian refugees, but some governors said they might make exceptions for Christians.

Officials with the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said they were perplexed by politicians around the world requesting Christian refugees from Syria.

Australian UNHCR country director Andrew Harper — who looks after 600,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan — said most of those fleeing to Jordan were not Christian.

"In regards to Jordan, 99 per cent of the refugees fleeing to Jordan are actually Sunni Muslim," Mr Harper said.

Mr Harper said when people were talking about focusing only on minorities, that was not necessarily a true reflection of the people probably most at risk.

"If people start pushing the minority card, or the religious card, we are going to be pushing that back and saying this is not the most important element for us," he said.

"Particularly as I was mentioning that 99 per cent of the people fleeing to Jordan are Sunni Muslim."

Mr Harper said the UN would not be swayed by any pressure when it came to referring Syrian refugee cases to Australia or any other country.

"We do not take too much notice of what politicians anywhere in the world have to say," he said.

"Some are being very forthright in their positions, but what we will do is remain objective and focus on the criteria which we have which is vulnerability.

"And if other people want to bring subjective values which are to necessarily key criteria, we will ignore those."