Home Affairs is a disaster. It needs an urgent and radical overhaul

There have been many detrimental auditor-general stories in regards to the Division of Immigration and its successor, Residence Affairs, over the previous decade, together with an array of extremely vital impartial evaluations and inquiries.

Yesterday’s report from the Australian Nationwide Audit Workplace on the division’s regulation of migration brokers may appear simply one other “scathing” assessment about one small side of the mega-department’s operations. Nevertheless it exhibits a significant division, with critical tasks, as shambolic and incapable of performing even the best duties.

If each space of Residence Affairs was subjected to a efficiency audit like that carried out by the Workplace of the Migration Brokers Registration Authority (OMARA) on this report, what would the outcome be? What number of different areas throughout its big expanse of operations can be discovered to be unable to do essentially the most primary bureaucratic duties?

“Residence Affairs’ regulation of migration brokers will not be efficient” is the headline conclusion by the auditor-general. Not “partially efficient” or “largely efficient”. Simply, not efficient. In any respect. This isn’t a couple of division getting just a few issues incorrect, and most proper, or a whole lot of issues incorrect, and some proper. It’s about bureaucrats who aren’t doing something proper.

Beneath the headlines there are some extraordinary revelations. The true import isn’t obvious to individuals who haven’t labored contained in the Australian Public Service. To those that have, they’re gobsmacking.

As an example:

• OMARA auto-renews any registered migration agent who sends in an utility earlier than the expiry of their registration; if no resolution is made in regards to the new utility, they’re “deemed” to be registered. Because of this, a number of brokers “for which there are critical integrity issues”, together with allegations of felony conduct, had been mechanically renewed: “40% of the brokers recognized by the division as suspected of facilitation of felony enterprise have had their registration functions ‘deemed’ [to be successful]”.
• OMARA continuously rejected complaints in opposition to migration brokers with out bothering to hunt any info, utilizing the in depth powers it has to take action. Quite a few brokers suspected of being concerned in felony enterprises merely went uninvestigated. In a single occasion:

an agent’s functions for registration and re-registration had been accredited yearly between 2005 and 2022 (though on 4 events the functions had been ‘deemed’ to have been accredited …). Between 2006 and 2019, 15 complaints had been made in opposition to the agent, together with allegations associated to undeclared help and misrepresentation. The division acknowledged in a short to the minister for immigration, citizenship and multicultural affairs in November 2022 that ‘All 16 [sic] complaints had been investigated and dismissed, due primarily to inadequate proof’. Within the matter/s lined within the temporary, the division had not issued notices below sections 305C or 308 of the Migration Act to require the RMA to offer info … The division didn’t advise the minister that it had not used the powers obtainable to it.

• OMARA just about ceased utilizing its powers to watch agent conduct in 2017, with solely a short burst of monitoring in 2019-20.
• “The Division of Residence Affairs doesn’t take acceptable motion to make use of the regulatory powers obtainable to it to sanction migration brokers. The division’s reporting on its use of regulatory powers has been inaccurate, overstating the extent to which it has acted. Residence Affairs is taking sanction motion in opposition to fewer brokers, and the brink required — by way of complaints — is rising.”
• For 9 months in 2016-17, OMARA workers didn’t have any lawful authority to train its powers. It had merely been left off the related instrument of delegation. Nevertheless it was okay, it suggested the then minister — it was solely an issue if anybody challenged OMARA’s actions in court docket. However simply in case, it was going to not do an excessive amount of till a brand new instrument was accredited.
• Departments usually fail to maintain all their paperwork up to date. OMARA, nonetheless, took this to a brand new degree. It hadn’t bothered to do the “assertion of expectations” required for each company and its minister. Its compliance plan and procedural handbooks had been 5 years outdated when the ANAO confirmed up, regardless of large adjustments to migration legislation at the moment. Its compliance and efficiency reporting can be abysmal.

Bear in mind, that is the sector that performed a task in the way in which the Coalition misplaced management of Australia’s borders to visa scammers and pretend refugee candidates. It ought to have been below intense scrutiny. However there’s actually no side of OMARA’s operations that was achieved correctly: the framework inside which it was presupposed to function didn’t exist or was outdated; it didn’t use its powers to research complaints; it didn’t vet candidates; it didn’t use its powers to watch brokers; it didn’t use its powers to sanction brokers; it didn’t report correctly; and it misled its minister.

Observe that these weaknesses have been recognized over a protracted interval — from Peter Dutton and David Coleman’s time proper as much as below the present ministers, Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles. This isn’t about politicians — though the Coalition’s tolerance for former Residence Affairs head Mike Pezzullo regardless of fixed revelations in regards to the incompetence of bureaucrats in his departments is unquestionably a contributing issue. These are public servants who can’t or received’t do their job. The concept they’re atypical doesn’t arise given the incessant stories and inquiries that reveal how unhealthy Residence Affairs is.

Enterprise as common at Residence Affairs can’t proceed — or these stories and inquiries will, irrespective of who’s in authorities.

Ought to Residence Affairs be dismantled? Tell us your ideas by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please embrace your full identify to be thought of for publication. We reserve the precise to edit for size and readability.