Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said he would intervene to grant 379 East Timorese asylum seekers permanent residency in Australia. He said he had made the decision to intervene before the Labor Party began suggestions he had been bribed to grant visas.

Labor last week questioned Mr Ruddock's decision to give Lebanese asylum seeker Bedweny Hbeich a visa after he allegedly donated $3,000 to the Liberal Party. This week the focus has been on Mr Ruddock's granting of religious worker visas after the Maha Budhi Monastery donated $100,000 to his local electorate office.

Mr Ruddock said most of the representations regarding East Timorese asylum seekers in Australia on temporary protection visas had been from Labor MPs. He said he had decided to intervene in 379 cases involving East Timorese, as long as those people pass character and health tests.

"I can say generally on behalf of some ... 379 people that I have stated a preparedness, subject to character and health issues being resolved satisfactorily, to intervene," Mr Ruddock told parliament.

He said there were two cases where he had refused to intervene and three he was still investigating.

"There are some 200 that are still being considered," Mr Ruddock said. "I simply make the point that the sorts of factors that people have suggested that I took into account in other matters, have been very much to the fore in my consideration of these matters well before any issues were raised in the House."