Bishop defends climate contrarian

A sceptical environmentalist came highly recommended when Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was looking for people to shake-up how Australia delivers aid projects.

Economist Bjorn Lomborg was named as one of 13 international experts who will advise the new aid innovationXchange just a week before the government gave $4 million for him to host a new think tank at the University of Western Australia.

Ms Bishop said she'd been looking for people who would challenge the status quo.

"His name was suggested to me by a number of eminent people and I was delighted that he accepted," she told reporters in Perth on Friday.

"I want people to think outside the square. I don't want everybody to sit and agree with each other."

Australia had spent billions on aid and in some areas was actually getting worse outcomes, Ms Bishop said.

She stressed the expert reference group, which she chairs, was simply an advisory body and the actual work the innovationXchange did in developing new aid ideas was done by public servants and people seconded from the private sector.

The decision to give money to the UWA Australia Consensus Centre, an offshoot of Dr Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Centre, has attracted criticism in recent weeks and reportedly was made in Prime Minister Tony Abbott's office.

Ms Bishop said she was not involved in that decision but thought the centre was a good idea.

"You don't want a group-think approach," she said.