Home Affairs’ cyber systems are vulnerable to hacking and frontline officers are not properly trained, according to a damning internal report that says chronic underfunding has undermined the department’s ability to keep Australia safe.
The leaked confidential review into the mega department responsible for national security, cyber defence and foreign interference among other areas revealed the department lost 600 employees in a year and more than $2 billion in cost-cutting has stopped it from hiring enough staff.
The probe into the agency’s budget, conducted by consulting and legal firm Proximity between December 2021 and February 2022, interviewed dozens of top brass including the agency’s secretary Mike Pezullo, who has run the department since its inception.
“From the beginning the department was set up to fail, in terms of its expectations and budget envelope,” an anonymous department official told the investigation.
Home Affairs was created by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017. Peter Dutton was the first minister in charge of the department, which brought together agencies including ASIO and the Australian Border Force. Moderate Liberals including former foreign minister Julie Bishop opposed its creation.
“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.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus held a press conference to announce that Debra Mortimer has been appointed chief justice of the Federal Court, the first woman to hold the position.
“While all agencies are expected to be efficient and balance their budgets according to government direction, the baseline budget situation for the department has become misaligned with its core and far-reaching activities related to keeping Australia safe.”
“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. By 2022, it had control of 13 functions including national security policy and operations, cyber policy, critical infrastructure and ethnic affairs/social cohesion.
A Home Affairs spokesman said the agency reviewed base funding annually and sought one-off top-ups “where funding is critical to meet immediate

priorities”.
“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.
Dutton’s office declined to comment.
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.
Referring to the poor relationship identified in the review between Home Affairs and the agency responsible for the budget, Hill said: “S***show would be a technical term for a government that gets to the point it commissions an expensive consultant report to referee a dysfunctional fight between Home Affairs and the Finance Department because ministers failed for years to simply do their jobs.”
The review did not identify many examples of the ways in which underfunding harmed its operations. The document says the department struggles to train frontline officers appropriately and has not maintained up-to-date IT systems, including its 30-year-old visa system requiring 17 different screens to process a single visa.
The report also found the department wasted $180 million on a visa system overhaul proposed by the Morrison government.
Home Affairs chief operating officer Justine Saunders was unable to specify which areas of the department suffered from the lack of funding when asked about the review during a hearing of parliament’s audit committee on Friday.
Saunders, who participated in the confidential audit, said the department was working with the new Labor government to find long-term funding solutions.
When Saunders denied the budget could be characterised as unsustainable, Hill responded: “Right, so nothing is underfunded even though that’s what the review says?”
The visa system has not yet been upgraded, but a review of Australia’s migration system is due mid-April. Home Affairs Minister Claire O’Neil told the AFR Workforce Summit at 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.
In the year before the review was conducted 600 staff left the agency, resulting in a “hollowing out of talent”. It had 13,371 staff in 2021, well below the 14,000 staff the agency can purportedly hire under its “average staffing level” cap
www.samigration.com V.4763

One of the highlighted topics: Critical Skills Visa.

- Key Insight: Is your profession on the Critical Skills List? This visa is your fast track to working in South Afr...
- This matter relates to critical skills visa and its broader implications.
- Individuals are advised to seek professional guidance.

Is your profession on the Critical Skills List? This visa is your fast trac V.6139
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One of the applicants, Phindile Mazibuko, became a victim of identity theft in 2012 when fraudulent transactions occurred, using her personal details.

-The Pretoria High Court found that the department of home affairs had violated constitutional rights without due process.
-Only half of Lawyers for Human Rights` test group has been unblocked, while 385 000 identities remain blocked nationwide.
-LHR appeals extension, urges affected people to seek help now.

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) are intensifying pressure on the department of home affairs over the national ID-blocking crisis, accusing the state of acting too slowly to unblock qualifying individuals despite a landmark court ruling.

In January last year, the Pretoria High Court found that the department`s practice of blocking IDs without due process was unlawful and unconstitutional. One of the applicants, Phindile Mazibuko, a Swati citizen and South African permanent resident since 1998, fell victim to identity theft in 2012 when fraudsters used her personal details.

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The Border Management Authority (BMA) has doubled its staff at Airports in South Africa , including immigration officers.

What does this mean for travelers? V.6128
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The Border Management Authority (BMA) has doubled its staff at Airports in South Africa , including immigration officers.

What does this mean for travelers? V.6129
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A Washington state mother and her 6-year-old son have been released after spending more than three weeks in US immigration detention due to a brief trip to Canada and a small paperwork mistake, her attorney told CNN on Saturday.

Sarah Shaw, a New Zealand citizen who has lived legally in the US since she arrived in 2021, was detained at the Blaine, Washington, Customs and Border Protection checkpoint when returning home after dropping her two oldest children off at the Vancouver airport for a flight to visit their grandparents in New Zealand. Shaw, 33, chose the flight out of Vancouver because it was direct and she didn`t want her children to have to navigate a layover alone, her attorney Minda Thorward, told CNN.

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On 22 July 2025, the Gauteng High Court dismissed Sitrusrand Boerdery`s review of the Department of Employment and Labour`s refusal to issue a Working Conditions and Salary Benchmarking Certificate, an essential precondition for obtaining corporate visas under the Immigration Act.

Acting Judge Kekana AJ held that the Department`s decision was lawful, rational and procedurally fair. This judgment illustrates how businesses can - and must - structure their corporate visa applications to meet statutory requirements, and how legal practitioners should prepare robust review challenges when administrative authorities decline to recommend foreign-work permits.

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The United States could forfeit an estimated 9.4 billion dollars in visitor spending over the next three years following the introduction of a new 250 dollars `visa integrity fee,` according to industry groups, who warn the policy risks undermining tourism and costing thousands of jobs.
The United States’ decision to introduce a 250 dollars `visa integrity fee` on international visitors has triggered sharp criticism from the global tourism industry, with officials warning that the measure could deter millions of travellers and cost the U.S. economy billions.
The 250dollar `visa integrity fee,` part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed on July 4, 2025, will take effect later this year. According to immigration law firm Envoy Global, it applies to all nonimmigrant visa holders which include students, tourists, temporary workers, and business visitors particularly from African countries. V.6132
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The Border Management Authority (BMA) has doubled its staff at Airports in South Africa , including immigration officers.

What does this mean for travelers? V.6127
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1. Right to Legal Representation•You have the right to consult with a legal representative.•Contact an immigration practitioner, legal aid clinic, or attorney urgently.•Do not sign any documents without understanding them fully. 2. Section 34 of the Immigration Act•You must be brought to court with 48 hours to confirm arrest but you can remain locked up very long as courts figure out what to do with you •If you`re found to be illegally in South Africa, you may be detained for up to 30 days (extendable by a magistrate) pending deportation.•BUT this cannot happen arbitrarily. You must be informed of your rights, and Home Affairs must follow due process.- becomes a nightmare , you could lose your job , business , place to stay V.6121
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Driving for Bolt, Uber, Mr D, or Checkers Sixty60?If you`re undocumented, you`re risking more than just your income.The Risks if You`re Not Legal: - Vehicle impoundment - Heavy fines - Arrest & deportation - Permanent bans from working in SA V.6122
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