Topics: Migration review, migration system abuse, visa processing

PATRICIA KARVELAS: More than half of you were either born overseas or had a parent born overseas. That's Australia's immigration story. But the Government says the system that brings people in is being exploited by criminals and people traffickers and not getting the workers we need here fast enough. 

The Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil is announcing a migration review to look at how Australia can close those loopholes and attract more migrants in key sectors given there's so much competition now for migrants. 

Minister Clare O'Neil joins you now. Welcome back to Breakfast. 

CLARE O'NEIL: Good morning, PK, great to be with you. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: It's been nearly 30 years since the immigration program was significantly reformed. There are reports the system is being rorted to allow awful things like sex trafficking, exploitation, drug crimes. Is it broken? 

CLARE O'NEIL: It is. It is. There are very significant problems with the immigration system today. Maybe if I just start with the problems and then let me talk about the opportunities. 

So a lot of your listeners will have been following the reporting that's been done over the last week on really grotesque issues in the immigration system. We've seen the systems been subject to exploitation to facilitate the most horrific of crimes being committed in our country. Things like sex slavery and human trafficking. 

I have to say I think there's a little bit of a political issue here for Peter Dutton. He was, you know, sort of went around the country talking about what a tough guy he was on the borders but at the same time was presiding over a system which was being used to facilitate criminal conduct, and I'm really worried about that, and I think we need to get some answers about why that's occurred. 

But there's a big opportunity piece to this conversation here as well and I don't want that to get missed. The piece of migration work that the Albanese Government is announcing this morning is really an outcome of the Jobs Summit, and we heard at the Jobs Summit enormous consensus across unions, across business, across civil society that this system can do so much for our country but it's not working at the moment for migrants or for the people who need them here to help us. 

So what we want to do is really go back to first principles and say why are we bringing people to Australia? What are the big problems that we need help with? And how can we design a system that's simple, that's inexpensive, that's fast, that's easy to use and that helps us get the best out of these people who want to make Australia their home. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. There were a couple of angles to what you said. On the previous government, is there any evidence that they were warned or that Peter Dutton knew just the scale that's now being exposed by the Nine papers? 

CLARE O'NEIL: Look, I think look at the Nine papers' reporting and you can see the issues really laid out there. I don't want to sort of imply that people knew that criminal conduct was on foot. What I would just say that it's absolutely clear to me that there are systemic abuses of the system occurring at the moment. And the fact that we've got examples of, you know, under Peter Dutton's watch a criminal coming into our country, living here for nine years and there was information within the Australian Government that this person was convicted of human trafficking in the UK and yet he was allowed to come here and live here with impunity. 

So, these are the sorts of issues that I'm really worried about and it's just so inconsistent, PK, you know, we had Peter Dutton talking tough on borders for nine years effectively and yet at the same time presiding over a system that was allowing these things to happen. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, but you've been in power for nearly six months, I know you're announcing this today. 

CLARE O'NEIL: Yes.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Can you be sure that none of this is happening under your watch? 

CLARE O'NEIL: Well, if there's systemic abuses, I can't honestly say that and that's why the Government is so seriously trying to look at this system. It has been without question the subject of neglect for nine years and we've got to make sure, number one, that we address the issues around criminality that are being alleged here by the media at the moment, but that we also get the opportunity here, and this is a really important piece of the puzzle, PK. You would have people on your show all the time talking to you about their frustrations about dealing with the migration system. We've got some of the best and brightest people around the world who want to come here and make Australia their home and we're making them wait for sometimes years at a time to get in the door when countries that we're competing with like Canada are essentially rolling out the red carpet and getting people to come through. 

So, we've got two issues here. A system that isn't getting the people into the country that we need, but one that is essentially being used to facilitate wrongdoing, and so this is a really big issue that Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and I are jointly working on at the moment. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: The review will take months with an interim report not due until February next year, but you're saying criminals are exploiting these gaps now. So, what can you do to stop visa rorting happening right now? 

CLARE O'NEIL: Yeah, so there's a lot of work under way on that front. So, there are some individual concerns that were raised about specific conduct of people and migration agents in the system, and we are already taking action on those individuals. 

There is a law enforcement piece to this. So, we've got obviously the exploitation of human beings occurring in our country, we are going to get on top of that, and that work is already under way with the AFP and Australian Border Force. But I do think there is a need to have a broader look at the way in which this system has been exploited by criminals and so we will also undertake that work and we're just working within government about what's the best policy process to work through. 

But if we can just step back from that, I think it's a real issue here for the opposition leader and I hope he'll come out today and talk about some of these problems that we heard tough on border rhetoric every day, barnstorming around the country telling us what a tough guy he is, and on his watch this was allowed to occur. I think that's a real problem. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: One of the issues already identified is how visas are currently processed and how long that takes. Will the review also look at restructuring the Department of Home Affairs? 

CLARE O'NEIL: Yeah, so it's a really important point, PK. So we've got a visa system today which is incredibly cumbersome. It's taking extraordinary lengths of time to get decisions out of it and that does need to be looked at. 

What the Government needs to first do is really think about the strategy behind the migration system. So, this question of who we ask to come to our country to help us with our national problems is one of the most important things that the Australian Government does, and at the moment there just isn't sufficient thought and strategy going into how we design that system and think about this critical task. So, we need to sort that out. 

But there is an issue here around the visa processing system. I sound I'm sure a bit bureaucratic and boring to people out there, but we've had, you know, when we arrived in government there were a million unprocessed visas sitting in that system. It was taking enormous amounts of time just to work through visa by visa and you'd be very surprised to see the level of, you know, this is not an automated system so there's a lot of human interaction where we're literally looking through and trawling through visas to see whether they meet the very complex eligibility criteria that the previous government had set out. 

So, there's a big question here about how we run the migration system. But the first question we've got to answer is what is this system for and how do we get it working for our country? 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You mentioned a million unprocessed visas when you came to power, how many are unprocessed now after you've tried to turbo charge this? 

CLARE O'NEIL: So, I'll get minister Andrew Giles to talk a little bit about that. We've made a lot of progress. We've brought the number down significantly but there's still a lot more work to do but I'll get Andrew to update you on the latest figures. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Unions have previously warned some sectors claiming worker shortages just aren't offering high enough paying jobs. How is the review going to sift through which industries do have shortages and which ones aren't offering enough? 

CLARE O'NEIL: Yeah, I think that's a really important point that the unions are making there, and I'd say this is a particular problem in the care workforce. So, we have moving ahead of us a very, very obvious problem, which is this largest ever of Australian generations, the baby boomers, is about to start drawing down on our aged care and medical care systems in a new way as they reach an older age. And we do not have the care workforce today to make sure that we've got enough carers for these people. 

So, we've got to have a really big conversation here, and the migration reform is about looking at, you know, big economic transformations the country needs to make because we want to be a high skill, high wage economy and the migration system can help us deliver that. 

But we've got another very important objective here, which is to make sure we've got the caring workforce we need to give every Australian dignity in their older age. So, the review will be looking at this really dual questions about how we create a system that both is attractive for migrants who are, you know, having their pick of anywhere in the world to go, and then caring migrants. How can we make sure that caring in Australia is a really good, positive experience for people? And wages of course are part of that. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Skilled occupation lists could be axed. That's how many are interpreting your review today. Is that ultimately where this is going? 

CLARE O'NEIL: Look, I don't have, you know, really strong preconceptions and nor should I if we're going to undertake a significant review like this. What I would say is I don't think there's anyone in the country at the moment that would argue that that skilled occupation list process is working properly. It's not an evidence-based process. So, the way that you end up with something on the skilled migration list is not based on really whether there's a skills shortage or not. 

But one of the biggest issues with that list, PK, is that as an Australian Government our priority of course is finding jobs for Australians and at the moment the skilled migration list doesn't feed at all into our skills and training system and that's why Andrew Giles and I are working very closely with the Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O'Connor to make sure that, you know, if we can foresee a labour shortage in something like nursing, why are we not talking to young people about the big, you know, great career that they can have in nursing and helping them get trained up on that? 

So, there's problems everywhere in this system but I say where there's a problem there's a huge opportunity and I really believe as a country we can do this so much better. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: The recommendations from the review will be handed to your government early next year, that of course is before the budget. Does that mean that this now, this reform that you're going to land, will be a centrepiece of next May's budget? 

CLARE O'NEIL: We'll have to wait for next May to look at that, but if I can just use your question to talk about another opportunity here. 

One of the really important things about this system, and I've talked about the areas where we can do so much better as a country, is that migration reform doesn't have to be very expensive, and this is my frustration looking at the last nine years and why this important thing that the Government does has been left on the table. 

We can make a huge change to the way that our economy works, to the economic future of our country by fixing this system, and it's not a costly exercise. So, we're going to ask for those recommendations to come to us in February. We'll, you know, as a cabinet look at the possible budget implications of that. But the most important thing here is we've got a big lever here to improve outcomes for our country and pulling it probably won't be very expensive. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Just on a few other issues. During the election, Labor promised to bring up to 19,000 people recognised as genuine refugees off temporary visas and on to permanent protection visas. Can you provide an update of how many of those people have now been granted permanent protection? 

CLARE O'NEIL: So, we haven't executed on the policy framework essentially to make that happen yet, but it's a commitment that the Labor Government made before the election and it's a commitment that we will meet. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Why haven't you? 

CLARE O'NEIL: It's a complicated exercise and we're going to do everything that's difficult with appropriate amounts of time. The whole ethos about government is to be calm and methodical and to do things properly, and that's the approach that we're taking to this particular change.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: We're out of time. Thanks for joining us, Minister. 

CLARE O'NEIL: Great, thanks so much, PK. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: That's the Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil and you're listening to ABC RN Breakfast.