TRANSCRIPT
Alleged sex trafficker Binjun Xie was kicked out of the country last month.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil says the Chinese national is accused of running a human trafficking ring described as moving women around 'like cattle'.
"These horrible people, who are committing the worst crimes known to humanity and abusing our migration system in order to do it, those are the people we are after and those are the people we will catch."
Xie arrived in 2014 on a student visa. He never studied but lodged multiple visa applications and appeals - a process which allowed him to stay in Australia for almost a decade. Which in this case, Minister O'Neil says is symbolic of the issues which exist in Australia's migration system.
"So, what does the Nixon Review tell us about Australia's migration system? It tells us that we have serious and systemic problems with abuse in our migration system. This system has been used to perpetrate some of the worst crimes known to humanity, sexual slavery and human trafficking. Delay and dysfunction and poor management of the immigration system lie at the heart of the ability of people to commit these crimes and exploit the system in the way that Christine Nixon has elaborated on."
The report by former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon has found 'grotesque abuses' in the migration system, including sexual exploitation, human trafficking and organised crime.
After recently being made public, the government is now responding. It will establish a new division within the Home Affairs Department, with $50 million in additional funding to better integrate intelligence and investigations.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles says a strikeforce will target organised abuse of the immigration programs and areas of concern.
"The increase in investigative powers will make a huge difference to this important sector, as well, more broadly, the renewed focus the generational investment in immigration compliance, because it's the compliance function that has been driving so much of the exploitation that's endemic. And our focus on this will be laser-like as we drive out immigration exploitation, whether it be workers or others from Australia's immigration system."
The government will tighten regulation for 'migration agents' to face tough new background and character checks and double the amount of staff who oversee the department - while increasing financial penalties for misconduct.
Almost $30 million will also be allocated to improve biometric matching and data collection.
The government will make Operation Inglenook permanent after it was established last year to target people exploiting temporary visa holders. And in the most serious of cases, new powers could even cancel visas.
Minister O'Neil says these issues are consequence of a lack of care and attention from the previous government.
"One of the great frauds in Australian politics, Peter Dutton, made a career out of pretending to be a tough guy on the borders. All the while he was cutting resources to the immigration function, cutting compliance resources in the immigration function, and allowing criminals to infiltrate this system in the way that Christine Nixon describes. Now we are taking a very different approach. You have before you two ministers that are acutely aware of the very significant responsibility we have for managing this system properly."
But although Minister O'Neil says the government received the report in March, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has questioned the timing.
"We, on a record basis, cancelled the visas of criminals who have committed sexual offences and other serious offenses against Australians. So, if you think I'm going to take a lecture from Clare O'Neil and Anthony Albanese in relation to migration and how to keep our country safe, you've got another thing coming."
