The new measures are part of the government’s formal response to a report by former Victorian police commissioner Christine Nixon into the exploitation of the visa system following theTrafficked series of reports byThe Sydney Morning Herald,The Age,60 Minutes and Stan.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles released their response at noon on Wednesday after months of debate over ways to tighten the system,including the $50 million outlay on federal officials to increase compliance with the rules.
“We have serious and systemic problems with abuse in our migration system,” O’Neil said.
The government will turn Operation Inglenook,a multi-agency team that has investigated dozens of cases of worker exploitation,into a permanent unit that will expand beyond its initial work in the sex industry and human trafficking.
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TheTrafficked series led to the creation of Inglenook,which scored a major success in recent weeks in thedeportation of Binjun Xie,an alleged Sydney-based human trafficking kingpin. The taskforce has also blocked 45 foreign nationals with Australian visas who are deemed “known facilitators” of visa fraud.
A separate “permanent strike force” will be set up within the Department of Home Affairs to increase compliance tests on people applying for visas to enter Australia,with the government expressing significant concern about suspect behaviour by migration agents.