Dodgy migration agents ‘given automatic green light’

Home Affairs automatically registered migration agents it suspected of criminal activity and dismissed hundreds of complaints without investigation.

Labor MP Linda Burney chaired the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, which looked into the regulatory performance of government departments and agencies. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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Home Affairs automatically registered migration agents it suspected of criminal activity and dismissed hundreds of complaints without investigation, a parliamentary inquiry has revealed.

The joint committee of public accounts and audit warned that the Department of Home Affairs had failed to monitor migration agents, despite its “legislated obligation to do so’’.

“Through its regulatory practices, Home Affairs could not always be satisfied a registered migration agent was fit and proper to give immigration assistance and was a person of integrity, prior to approving registration,’’ the committee states in a report tabled in parliament the day before Anthony Albanese called the federal election for May 3.

Despite the federal bureau­cracy ballooning by 40,000 extra public servants over the past three years, the committee flagged “plainly unacceptable’’ regulatory failings across four departments and agencies.

It warned of “gaps and inconsistencies’’ in regulations for immigration, aged care, medicine imports and trade measurement.

“Some entities were failing to effectively regulate at all, or their regulation was only partially effective,’’ the committee, chaired by Labor MP Linda Burney, concluded. “Some of the shortcomings – particularly the Depart­ment of Home Affairs’ failure to effectively regulate migration agents, and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources’ oversight of trade measurement – were plainly unacceptable.’’

The committee found that Home Affairs had been automatically re-registering migration agents with expired registrations, if no departmental decision had been made after 10 months, in a process known as “deeming’’.

It said migration agents “for which Home Affairs itself held serious integrity concerns had their renewal applications approved, whether through deeming or an automated granting system’’.

The public accounts and audit inquiry found that 40 per cent of migration agents that Home ­Affairs suspected of criminal activity had their applications approved through deeming, and 20 per cent had their registration “auto-granted’’.

It said the ANAO had found that 59 per cent of repeat registrations since April 2021 had been approved without being assessed by a public servant.

The Department of Industry is responsible for checking that scales are accurate, to avoid consumers getting ripped off.

“The audit found that even in cases where migration agents were suspected of facilitating criminal enterprise or involvement of cash-for-visa schemes, Home Affairs had not always exercised its available regulatory powers under the Migration Act to investigate,’’ the committee report states. “Home Affairs has subsequently advised it no longer auto-grants applications for re-registration; all registration applications are manually processed.

“Home Affairs … did not respond to the committee’s question as to legal basis for the automated approval process.

“The committee received no information from Home Affairs as to whether the practice of deeming has continued.’’

The inquiry found that Home Affairs “was also failing to undertake any monitoring activities’’.

Home Affairs took action against just 9 per cent of 299 complaints about 244 migration agents in 2022-23, its report states.

“Some complaints were dismissed because there was ‘insufficient’ evidence, when Home Affairs had not actually used its regulatory powers to investigate,’’ the report states.

Apart from Home Affairs, the committee critiqued the regulatory performance of DISR, the Department of Health, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission and the Australian Taxation Office.

The Health Department, responsible for the safety of medicines and therapeutic devices, told the committee it issued nearly 8000 warning letters, seized more than eight million illegally imported goods, sent more than 4800 content removal requests for unlawful advertising of therapeutic goods online, and finalised 10,000 cases in 2023-24.

It had issued either 150 or 190 fines – with the Health Department providing conflicting figures in its submission and in evidence to the public hearing.

“When asked to explain the fact 10,000 cases were completed but less than 200 infringement notices had been issued, Health responded its approach was to work with an entity in ‘coming to compliance’,’’ the report states.

The committee criticised DISR, which employs inspectors to check that businesses are not ripping off consumers by selling undersized goods or rigging scales or petrol bowsers.

It found that DISR had nearly halved its inspections over the past six years, to just 5161 in 2023-24.

DISR told the committee it “had trouble recruiting inspectors following the pandemic’’ and was now focusing on “greater attention on harm, rather than measurement accuracy’’.

The committee noted that DISR’s claim of best-practice and risk-based compliance “does not, in actual fact, make these things so’’.

It chided DISR for giving the committee near-identical answers to three questions seeking different information.