Dutton savaged after scathing review

Christine Nixon, commissioned by the government earlier this year to undertake a “rapid review” into the exploitation of the country’s visa system, found migrant worker exploitation was essentially a design feature of the system.

The sweeping review also found the country’s immigration system is profoundly broken, allowing for systemic abuses of “sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other organised crime”.

In her letter to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, Ms Nixon said Australia’s visa system “must be strengthened” in order to counter “organised crime syndicates, to ensure they don’t prey upon Australia as an easy destination to conduct their exploitative and criminal business, and to protect those who are most vulnerable”.

Ms Nixon’s review found that found that staffing cuts at the Home Affairs department under the former Coalition government had undermined effective compliance.

Ms O’Neil said the review had ultimately revealed the extent of former home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s failure in the role.

She said the reality was, Mr Dutton had “turned a blind eye” to criminals routinely abusing Australia’s visa system.

“The truth is that Peter Dutton, first as immigration and border protection minister and later as home affairs minister, presided over a migration system that was used to facilitate some of the worst crimes in our society,” she said.

“The issues raised in the Nixon report are not new. The warning signs were there. Now, we are getting on with the job of cleaning up Peter Dutton’s mess.”

She said failures in the system had allowed Binjun Xie, the alleged Sydney-based human trafficking kingpin, to dodge authorities and remain in the system for nine years.

The review also found the protection visa system was being grossly exploited, with people who make false asylum claims protected by processing delays, allowing them to stay in the country fraudulently for up to 11 years and slowing down the process for vulnerable refugees.

The review also revealed the “substantial and accelerating issues of integrity” in the international education sector, which the government announced its response to on Tuesday.

In response to the review, Ms O’Neil said it would expand multi-agency operation Inglebrook – set up initially to crack down on sex exploitation in the immigration and visa system – to address systemic migrant worker exploitation across all industries, and the misuse of the visa and migration system.

She said the government would also strengthen safeguards around migrant agents to address criminality in the industry, and would do so by providing a stronger framework for the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority and increase financial penalties for providing unlawful immigration assistance.

The government will also invest an extra $50 million to establish a new division within the Home Affairs department to re-prioritise immigration compliance and protect the integrity of the system.

Ms O’Neil said the new division would improve protections for vulnerable migrants, and target the organised abuse of immigration programs.

Then, on Thursday, the government will announce its plans to tackle this system of abuse, which Labor says is effectively breaking the protection visa system.

Later this year, the government will release its Migration Strategy.

Originally published as ‘Turned a blind eye’: Peter Dutton savaged by government after damning review of Australian visa system