Dutton’s debacle: How the faux-tough immigration cops lost control of our borders

The Nixon review of how Australia’s visa systems are exploited hasn’t come out of the blue. We’ve known for a long time that here was something alarmingly wrong with the way the Immigration Department, and then Home Affairs as it became, was managing our visa system — especially the onshore humanitarian visa processing system.

An auditor-general report in late 2015 concluded: “There are weaknesses in almost all aspects of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s arrangements for managing visa holders’ compliance with their visa conditions.” In 2019, Crikey exposed the extent of the rorting of onshore humanitarian visas for cheap labour by organised crime. Last