News Service from House Harris

Fed: Australia may help to stop piracy off Somalia: Smith

PERTH, April 13 AAP - Australia will consider assisting international efforts to secure the Horn of Africa amid rampant piracy, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says.

US navy snipers ended a five-day high seas hostage drama on Easter Sunday when they shot dead three pirates holding American sea captain Richard Phillips at gunpoint in a lifeboat off the Somali coast, rescuing him unharmed.

Last Friday, four French hostages were freed by French special forces from a yacht, whose owner Florent Lemacon was killed in the raid, along with two pirates.

Mr Smith said those two incidents were consistent with the spate of piracy in the region over the past 12 months.

Australia had amended its travel and maritime advisories for the area and would consider what it could do to help improve safety in the region, he told reporters in Perth on Monday.

"Joel Fitzgibbon and I, the defence minister and I, spoke generally about these matters when we were in the United States ... last week with Secretary of State (Hillary) Clinton and Secretary of Defence (Robert) Gates," Mr Smith said.

"We certainly supported the United States efforts to recover the US captain and we support very strongly the international efforts to seek to bring the Horn of Africa under control so far as piracy is concerned.

"We are currently giving consideration to what, if any, practical assistance we can give to the proposed international force."

Mr Smith said it was not an area where the international community looked to Australia to render assistance.

"We are looking at what, if there is anything, we can do," he said.

"We'll make a decision in our own time and announce that in due course.

"It's not what one would regard as in the first instance an area where the international community looks in a priority way to Australia to render assistance."