Exclusive: Home Affairs’ cyber systems are vulnerable to hacking and frontline officers are not properly trained, according to a damning internal report.
“The financial underpinnings to support the resolution of critical policy and operational issues have not been available. Functions and priorities were never right sized or funded appropriately from the outset,” the report found.
“A large gap between funding and operation requirements is forcing the department to make tradeoffs between risk tolerance, service delivery quality, and cost.”Budget documents show Home Affairs’ budget is slated to drop by $500 million over the next year, from $7.8 billion to about $7.3 billion.While funding has increased in recent years, the report noted the agency’s responsibilities have tripled. It previously managed five key areas including border protection, citizenship and customs.
“The Department has a strong record in budget management and has historically reported balanced results despite its complex budget arrangements and has achieved an average financial result within 0.7 per cent of the allocated budget over the eight years to 2021-22,” the spokesman said.The chair of the parliament’s public accounts and audit committee, Julian Hill, said Home Affairs’ top executives had admitted the agency was set up to fail and was compromising national security.
It is not known if the visa system has been upgraded since the report was written, but Home Affairs Minister Claire O’Neilat the end of February that the visa backlog had been reduced from 1 million to 500,000 over the eight months she had overseen the department.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Australia’s ‘biggest blowout in net migration’ caused by lack of communicationLack of communication between the Department of Home Affairs and the Treasury is the cause of the “biggest blowout in net migration” in Australian history, says former Dept of Immigration deputy secretary Abul Rizvi. “Sadly, the responsibility for this has been split into two agencies, and I’m not quite sure why we did that,” Mr Rizvi told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “The forecast of net migration is made by Treasury, and the delivery of net migration is managed by the Department of Home Affairs. “It’s not clear to me that Treasury consults Home Affairs much in coming up with its forecast, and Home Affairs doesn’t bother too much about the Treasury forecast.”
Read more »
Queensland house where girl, 13, was allegedly tortured burns to the groundPolice believe the Sunshine Coast home may have been set alight early Wednesday morning
Read more »
Gareth Ward set to be re-elected as Kiama MP despite being suspended from NSW parliamentThe ABC has called the seat for the independent MP, who has pleaded not guilty to sexual and indecent assault charges
Read more »
‘Political suicide’: Victorian government set to cut 5,000 public service jobsCommunity and Public Sector Union Secretary Karen Batt says the idea that the Victorian government wants to cut jobs in the public sector to save money ahead of the budget in May is “political suicide”. 'It's the equivalent of political suicide in our view, you cannot have this sort of cut not have an impact on jobs and services across the state,' she told Sky News Australia. 'We've already got significant vacancies because of COVID-19 … we don't have enough staff to fill the rosters, 550 vacancies in the Department of Education and yet they want to cut more and more”.
Read more »
NSW MP Gareth Ward appears set to be re-elected as he fights sexual assault allegationsAs vote counting continues, Premier Chris Minns' hopes of a majority government may be slipping away. 9News
Read more »
Australia faces huge housing shortfall as new home sales slumpA dramatic slump in both house-and-land packages and new apartments sales will reduce the future supply of housing and exacerbate the rental crisis.
Read more »