Labor blocked from immigration briefings

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has blocked opposition access to his department's bureaucrats in breach of caretaker provisions, Labor says.

Labor immigration spokesman Tony Burke accused Mr Andrews of shutting him out of briefings either to cover up incompetence or out of arrogance.

Mr Burke said he had been unable to obtain files about Vietnamese-born refugee Tony Tran, whose case of alleged wrongful attention for five and a half years came to light.

"I'm not able to get the briefings directly from the department that would ordinarily be made available to a shadow minister," Mr Burke told ABC TV.

The spokesman said he was the only Labor frontbencher to have received such treatment during the campaign.

An October 15 letter from Mr Andrews had confirmed that "for this one department the opposition would be shut out of having any further meetings", Mr Burke said.

"We're either talking about a cover-up of further incompetence or we're talking about arrogance.

"I think either of them are probably plausible."

Mr Burke said the immigration department head had informed him on the advice of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that he had to seek information directly from Mr Andrews.

He accused the minister of abusing standard protocols.