Half special refugee intake approved: Govt

The Australian government has issued visas to half of the 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees it promised to resettle last year in a special intake.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton revealed 6678 visas had been issued as of September 2, with about half of those people settled in Australia.

Another 6293 people have been interviewed and assessed as meeting the threshold and are awaiting the outcome of health, character and security checks.

Mr Dutton said those checks were mandatory and warned there would be "no shortcuts".

"As a government we made it clear at the outset this special intake would take time to fulfil," he said in a statement on Thursday.