Australia will tread carefully in its exchanges with Egypt as it tries to negotiate the release of jailed journalist Peter Greste.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that despite widespread shock and dismay over the seven-year sentence handed to the Al Jazeera English reporter and his colleagues, voicing outrage is not the answer.

“I don’t believe that loose language or emotive language is necessarily going to get us the right result for Peter Greste,” Mr Abbott told Sky News.

Australia plans to make a formal request to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seeking his intervention in the Greste case.

Hopes of a prompt presidential pardon in the matter were dealt a blow late on Tuesday when Cairo said such a move could not occur until the appeal court process had been exhausted.

President Sisi further confirmed that Egyptian authorities “will not interfere in judicial matters”.