Immigration

Closing the door Dutton left open

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A long walk from Melbourne to Canberra but a longer wait for a visa

Last week a group of 22 Tamil and Iranian women, who have been living in Australia on short-term bridging visas, completed their walk from Melbourne to Canberra. They are among 10 000 people suspended in a state of fear and anxiety, waiting up to eleven years for their applications for protection to be considered. They are calling on the government to process their applications, and for the sake of others to fix the broken system the government inherited from its predecessor – the system developed by Peter Dutton when he was Minister for Immigration from 2014 until 2021.

In that role Dutton presented himself as tough on border protection, and he militarized the Immigration Department, giving it the weird name “Home Affairs”, bringing ASIO and other security services into the portfolio, and changing the department’s presentation to the world as a para-military operation. In that fantasyland of toy soldiers the department’s programs were given militarized names “Operation Sovereign Borders”, “Operation INGLENOOK”.

It was indeed fantasy because in its new configuration the department failed to protect our borders from people smugglers and other criminal gangs, and neglected normal immigration functions. Maybe the emphasis on boats did work to stop this deadly form of travel. But the crooks soon learned that the department’s compliance resources had been subject to budget cuts and that if its attention was focussed on boats it was probably letting down its guard in other areas. People traffickers and other criminals poured into Australia through our poorly-protected airports, as did their victims including sex slaves, money mules, and underpaid workers.

To their credit, journalists from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in their project Trafficked: an international investigation raised awareness of the extent to which our immigration had been weakened. Their initial concern was with sex slavery but as they and others dug further they discovered ways our weak borders allowed for exploitation of other vulnerable and desperate people.

The government’s response

In January this year the Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, commissioned former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon to undertake a rapid review into exploitation of Australia’s visa system.

Nixon reported to the government in March, and the government released a redacted version of her reviewearly this month. The redaction and the half-year delay are understandable: presumably the redacted content would have been used as a guide for people smugglers and unethical migration agents, and the review required a policy response from many departments and ministers – Home Affairs, Education, Employment, and Attorney Generals. In its response the government accepted, in full or in principle, 32 out of 34 of the review’s recommendations. (The two disagreements relate to the way sex trafficking should be handled.)

You can hear Nixon summarize the main findings of her review in a short (7 minute) interview on ABC Breakfast: How can Australia stop migrant and visa exploitation?. The main issues to be addressed are the exploitation of vulnerable people on temporary visas (encouraged by the long delays in visa processing), under-resourcing in the Department, the Department’s distraction on matters other than immigration, and inadequate regulation of migration agents.

Clare O’Neil ’s response, given on the ABC’s 730 Report, describes an “amazing fraud” that has been perpetrated on the Australian people. Peter Dutton built his political career on a supposed tough approach to borders, while as minister he severely cut funding for immigration compliance. “On his watch people with criminal convictions walked into this country and oversaw large rings of human trafficking and sexual slavery”.

She describes how the system has failed asylum seekers because people with “unmeritorious” claims are clogging up the system. They know their claims will be rejected but delays in the system mean they can stay in Australia for long periods – up to 10 years. That means that people with genuine claims are also having to wait those long times. The problem is described in a post on the ABC website – the legal loophole that nearly broke Australia’s asylum seeker system – by Evelyn Manfield and Tom Lowrey.

Nixon’s report illustrates an example of the long chain of applications and rejections, in relation to a student seeking to stay in Australia – maybe someone who enrolled in a shonky VET course. This is shown below. (A description of each step is at P 24 of the report.)

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The government’s response has been on several fronts. Writing in The Conversation – why the government’s plan to overhaul the asylum system is a smart use of resources – and might just work – Danial Ghezelbash and Jane McAdam of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales note that the government’s priority is to speed up the process, which will discourage the unmeritorious and will reduce uncertainty and wait times experienced by genuine asylum-seekers. To this end it is committing resources:

The government is also taking other steps to do with regulation and compliance in immigration. In fact even before the Nixon review was commissioned, the government was paying particular attention to the VET sectorin relation to immigration. The ABC’s Nicole Hegarty reports that the government is cracking down on migration agents.

The Department’s governance

At the same time as the government was dealing with compliance failures in the Department of Home Affairs, the behaviour of the department head Mike Pezzulo came under scrutiny. The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald published revelations about Pezzulo’s dealings that appear to go well beyond what would be considered as normal relations between politicians and public servants : Five years. A thousand messages. How a top public servant tried to influence governments. The article is paywalled but The Age has a short videoclip of the project: How a top Australian public servant tried to influence governments. He has stood aside while former Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs conducts an inquiry into his behaviour. The ABC’s Tom Lowrey reports on these matters: Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo stood aside as alleged texts to Liberal powerbroker investigated.

Former Immigration Department Deputy Secretary Abul Rizvi notes that Pezzulo was an enthusiast for the Home Affairs experiment. Rizvi argues convincingly that the Home Affairs pretensions be discarded, and that it should revert to a conventional Department of Immigration, as we have had for many decades.

When asked about Pezzulo, Minister O’Neil conveniently avoided the issue, responding “we are a government that runs proper processes”.

In view of what has emerged from the Robodebt inquiry, and now in allegations about Pezzulo’s behaviour, the government is going to have to deal with the issue of the relationship between governments and senior public servants. In its changes to the Public Service Act the Howard government politicized the public service. Subsequent governments may be attracted to the idea that they will be served by a politically loyal public service, but as Machiavelli pointed out 500 years ago, flatterers and sycophants, in creating a sense of false security, do not serve their masters well.