ABC‘s ‘7:30’ have conducted an investigation into corruption within our country’s immigration control, which also looks at the biggest issues facing Border Force and the Aussie Immigration Department. And guess what – it’s not boats, apparently.
Apparently Immigration Department chief Michael Pezzullo has submitted 132 cases of suspected in-department corruption to the national watchdog, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), in the past year alone.
A former immigration official of 27 years, Joseph Petyanszki, made claims that the focus and rhetoric around arrival of asylum seekers by boat was actually downplaying the far more serious issue of migrants arriving by plane, virtually unchecked:
“In the border security debate, it has been easy to deflect the public’s attention to boat arrivals.But this fear-mongering has totally ignored where the vast bulk of real fraud is, most significantly undermining our immigration programs.”
He says that the department ignores thousands of cases where the person migrated Australia on a visa, but are now flouting the terms of their visit.
“Numerous investigations [by the department] revealed massive fraud within our Student, Skilled Migration, 457 programs,” he said.
He is calling for a major overhaul of the system and immigration department, more officers, more regulation of migration agencies and sponsors, and much more.
To read more, you can via ABC‘s ‘7:30’: abc.net.au/news/2016-06-27/immigration-corruption,-rorting-revealed/7537270
Source: 7:30.
