Home Affairs chief Michael Pezzullo warns against change

Home Affairs Department secretary Michael Pezzullo has appeared to warn Labor against making any changes to the department.

Pezzullo said lowering migration would send a message. Picture Kym Smith

Home Affairs Department secretary Michael Pezzullo has appeared to warn Labor against making any changes to the ­department — floated in its draft national platform — declaring it would be unwise to decouple the management of national security and border protection.

Labor’s draft national platform proposed to review the arrangements for Home Affairs — which includes national security, immigration and border control agencies — “to ensure they are fit for purpose” and “make any adjustments where required”.

Mr Pezzullo said in a speech this month: “Immigration and border management is the issue devouring public confidence in the political process in Western democracies.

“The linking of managed immigration, border protection, and national security is more important than ever before to maintain that public confidence. And those who would seek to unravel those linkages do so very unwisely.”

Mr Pezzullo also said the move to dramatically lower the migration intake would send a message to the world and should act as a “deterrent” to poor-quality applicants who seek to come to Australia.

The Labor leadership is trying to avoid a damaging internal fight over asylum-seekers at its national conference in December, but is being lobbied by Labor for Refugees to soften its policies on offshore detention.

Mr Pezzullo’s speech, given to a closed-door forum last week and quietly uploaded on to the department’s website this week, comes as business groups issue a new warning that political parties are “playing with fire” on skilled migration, undermining community support for the program and ­endangering economic growth.

The Australian revealed last week the annual permanent migration intake fell by more than 10 per cent to fewer than 163,000, the lowest level in more than a decade, as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said new integrity measures had cut visa approvals.

Mr Pezzullo said visa refusals had increased 42 per cent from the previous year because of tightened scrutiny and “enhanced detection capabilities” that had “lifted the quality of the positive (visa) grants”.

“It will deter abuse and fraud going forward, and will be a deterrent (and hardening) as our visas become more well known around the world,” he told the Australian Security Summit in Canberra.

Meanwhile, earlier in the week, Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor talked up fears that the massive growth in international student visas and the issuing of temporary visas was undermining Australian jobs.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson said his members were worried as they believed politicians were undermining community support for skilled migration, which was becoming more pronounced because of the move to lower the permanent intake. “In the current debate, both sides are playing on people’s fears … either appealing to the security issue or to the jobs issue,” hesaid.

“Both sides are playing with fire on this issue because it’s a key part of Australia’s economic success story.”

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox called on the government to ­return closer to the 190,000 ­permanent-intake ceiling.

“There should be no reason to believe that the ceiling set in the budget shouldn’t be reached in the coming financial year and we would urge the government not to put brakes on the program. If the skilled workers don’t come here, they will go elsewhere and that will be to our cost.” he said.