DFAT defends Bishop's Iran trip

The foreign affairs department has defended Julie Bishop's trip to Iran following criticisms in some quarters that Australia was flirting with evil.

Ms Bishop was the first Australian minister to visit Iran in 12 years when she travelled there in April to score an intelligence-sharing deal and raise human rights issues.

Tehran was an insular place with a cloistered media and it was important for outsiders to visit and provide other perspectives, department official Marc Innes-Brown told a Senate committee on Thursday.