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A focus on stopping migrant boats as millions of people arrived on planes with inadequate scrutiny meant authorities missed widespread exploitation and abuse in Australia\u2019s visa system, according to the former top cop who led the Albanese government\u2019s immigration rorts inquiry.<\/p>\n
In her most damning comments to date, former Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon also warned that seismic and sustained reform was needed to address problems in the multibillion-dollar international education sector and to combat the normalisation of foreign worker exploitation.<\/p>\n
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Christine Nixon hands over her report to minister Clare O\u2019Neil.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jason South<\/cite><\/p>\n Nixon described how the economic benefits of Australia\u2019s demand-driven, user-pays international education market had clouded discussion about the entrenched integrity problems in the sector, including ghost colleges and the use of the student visa system as a means of supplying foreign workers.<\/p>\n \u201cOur economy has become accustomed to having cheap overseas labour, and migration system reform will have to take that into account,\u201d Nixon said. \u201cWhy is it OK to bring people into this country to be exploited? It isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Nixon also said the Home Affairs department needed to undergo significant change to respond to the problems.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were told the department\u2019s energy went into the boats [with asylum seekers] but people were just flying into Australia in their millions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Nixon said one case involved a woman from China in her 50s on a student visa who was picked up at the airport and put in the underground sex industry.<\/p>\n Nixon\u2019s interview came after the Albanese government announced sweeping reforms to the visa system aimed at curbing corruption in the overseas education sector, combating human trafficking and worker exploitation and reducing lengthy delays in dealing with fraudulent protection visa applications.<\/p>\n Home Affairs Minister Clare O\u2019Neil said Labor would beef up the immigration compliance section of her department after cuts under previous governments, spending $50 million. It would also crack down on registered migration agents, with more funding to the regulatory body, and strengthen the fit-and-proper person test for international education providers.<\/p>\n The reforms were prompted by the Trafficked series of reports by The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>, The Age<\/em>, 60 Minutes<\/em> and Stan, which forced the Albanese government to commission the Nixon inquiry.<\/p>\n In her response, O\u2019Neil took aim at Opposition Leader Peter Dutton saying his tough-on-immigration stance as home affairs minister was \u201cone of the great frauds in Australian politics.\u201d<\/p>\n Dutton responded that O\u2019Neil was \u201ca very angry person, always very angry and very aggressive\u201d.<\/p>\n Nixon found there was a system-wide enforcement failure partly due to a severe lack of resources.<\/p>\n \u201cBorder force has very limited investigative capacity. The federal police is spread thin enforcing all types of commonwealth crimes and also has limited investigative capacity. It gets even worse when you look at enforcement within the overseas education system,\u201d Nixon said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I discovered is that there was nobody really in firm control of the whole visa system. There are always arguments about the levels of permanent migration but no one seemed to have control of how many temporary visas are being granted each year and how some were being abused.<\/p>\n Organised crime boss, Albanian Diego Biba outside court.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>60 Minutes<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cUntil recently Australia has been running a visa system with multiple owners impacting multiple ministers and portfolios without asking, \u2018what are the flaws? How do we stop the exploitation\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n In her inquiry report, Nixon concluded that it was clear that \u201cgaps and weaknesses\u201d in Australia\u2019s visa system were enabling criminal organisations to exploit people and make money.<\/p>\n Nixon\u2019s comments come as O\u2019Neil deported a second organised crime boss, Albanian Diego Biba, who was at the centre of some of The Age\u2019s<\/em> reporting series.<\/p>\n As in the case of recently deported sex trafficker Binjun Xie, Biba managed to spend years in Australia committing alleged serious criminal offences despite compelling evidence he was rorting the visa system.<\/p>\n In her interview with The Age<\/em>, Nixon called for ongoing monitoring to ensure the government\u2019s proposed reforms are adequately implemented and effective, while describing how more work needed to be done in understanding exploitation of Australia\u2019s migration system.<\/p>\n Binjun Xie is escorted to a plane after being arrested.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt might be that half the people coming to Australia on temporary visas don\u2019t want to go home. We don\u2019t know. What are the exploitation levels? What are the abuse levels? Finding more data is critical,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The latest statistics reveal that there are over 2.5 million foreign nationals in Australia on temporary visas, including 650,000 international students, 200,000 graduates and 450,000 people with various working rights, including holidaymakers and skilled workers.<\/p>\n The Albanese government is expected to soon release further reforms aimed at matching genuine skills shortages to visa supply.<\/p>\n Inside a brothel linked to trafficking.<\/span><\/p>\n Nixon said her investigation began with leads generated by the Trafficked series, a significant data sweep of previous reports and a deep dive into intelligence holdings of state and federal agencies.<\/p>\n \u201cI realised very early on that things were bad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The ex-police chief was struck by the frustration of some law enforcement officials who briefed her about the human cost of the failure to stop organised crime groups rorting visa streams.<\/p>\n \u201cOne police officer I spoke to couldn\u2019t get over the idea that there was so little they could do to combat sexual servitude,\u201d she said, while describing her own revulsion at discovering case studies that exposed abject human suffering.<\/p>\n She said one case involved a 50-something year-old woman from Northern China who entered Australia on a student visa to study English.<\/p>\n Rather than attend school, the woman was picked up at the airport and entered the underground sex industry where she was \u201cappallingly abused\u201d.<\/p>\n Nixon noted that the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was seeking to improve the response to human and sex trafficking and that the federal police and border force employed committed investigators. But she said they have a tough job in front of them.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was an incredible lack of investigative capacity to deal with these issues,\u201d said Nixon, explaining that this was why she had recommended a multi-agency taskforce, a reform implemented by Labor.<\/p>\n But in a reform still being considered, Nixon said that, as in Canada and New Zealand, temporary migrants should be barred from working in the sex industry.<\/p>\n If they were found to do so, they and their employer could be deported or otherwise sanctioned.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not blaming the victims. It is about targeting these people who are exploiting these women. This is organised crime,\u201d Nixon said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe same nationalities are exploiting each other. They should have their visas cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n Nixon also attacked the long-standing failure of successive governments to strengthen Australia\u2019s anti-money laundering regime, given that greed and vast international money trails underpin the visa rorting scandal.<\/p>\n The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. <\/i><\/b>Sign up here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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