An extra $6m in humanitarian aid will be given to agencies working in Burma’s Rakhine state, an area that houses the majority of Rohingya people, the foreign minister Julie Bishop has announced.

More than 130,000 Rohingyas have fled Burma since riots erupted in Rakhine in 2012, and at least 3,000 have attempted to make the dangerous sea voyage to Malaysia in the last fortnight.

Many remain at sea, caught in a people trafficking standoff in the Andaman Sea, as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia refuse to take the asylum seekers.

Bishop on Wednesday announced Australia will give $2m to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide shelter for displaced people in Burma’s Rakhine and Kachin states.

Another $3m will be given to the World Food Program for emergency supplies and $1m has been earmarked for the Burma Emergency Response Fund, led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).



“This contribution builds on our long-term support to Burma’s economic, political and social reform process, and our commitment to address security challenges in Burma,” Bishop said in a statement. “It will also undermine the ability of people smugglers to sell the false hope of unsafe boat journeys to neighbouring countries.”

Australia has cut $11bn in the forward estimates from its foreign aid budget, with Burma’s program copping a $28m cut in last Tuesday’s budget, amounting to a loss of 40% of its overall funding.

The World Food Program and UNHCR also lost funding, amounting to $2.5m and $1m respectively.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the government should not expect a “pat on the back” for the $6m funding announcement.

“It’s time Australia was genuine with the humanitarian assistance we give our regional neighbours. Australia should restore all foreign aid cuts to Burma and apply diplomatic action focused on addressing human rights abuses against the Rohingyan people,” she said.

The foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand met on Wednesday for emergency talks on the high seas standoff ahead of a broader regional meeting on 29 May.

The Australia prime minister, Tony Abbott, has defended the government’s record of turning back the boats.

“I’m in no way critical of regional countries for the efforts that they make to stop the boats. Yes, we’ve always got to be humane and we’ve always got to be decent, but in the end we have to stop the boats,” Abbott said on Sunday.

“If that means taking more vigorous action on the high seas, if that means taking more vigorous action to uphold safety at sea closer to Burma and other countries which appear to be the source of this latest surge of boat people, well so be it.

“But I don’t apologise in any way for the action that Australia has taken to preserve safety at sea by turning boats around where necessary and if other countries choose to do that, frankly, that is almost certainly absolutely necessary if the scourge of people smuggling is to be beaten,” he said.

The shadow immigration minister, Richard Marles, who is currently in Burma, said the turnback policy is too simplistic to apply to other countries.

“We need to be helping these governments and supporting them rather than pretending that a particular policy can be a panacea for every situation,” Marles told ABC Radio.