Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, I will ask a series of questions in relation to the government's priorities concerning the staffing and resourcing of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in accordance with the budget. Under the immigration minister's watch, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is having more and more jobs cut from the ranks, and the minister is attempting to conceal those figures in the budget papers. The Senate budget estimates process reveals that the immigration department has had 509 employees cut from its workforce since 1 July 2016. The department started the financial year at 14,266 employees and now has only 13,757 employees. The 2016-17 budget stated that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was going to lose an average staffing level of 305 jobs. The reality, however, is that the department has cut 509 individual jobs this financial year so far. The 2017-18 budget shows a further cut of 245 to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection's average staffing level number. That is hundreds of departmental staff who are no longer able to process visas or citizenship applications, to crack down on rorts in relation to the 457 visa program or other temporary protection visa programs or, indeed, to protect our borders. Given the government's track record over the past year, how many individual jobs is the government going to slash from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection?

This Senate budget estimates process confirms that the loss includes some 250 departmental staff from call centres in Sydney, London and Ottawa, jobs that will be outsourced in the coming financial year. The department, under the minister's watch, has been forced to close its Dandenong office, which sees more than 20,000 people each year. This is happening while waiting times for visas to be processed have ballooned out. This Turnbull government's indexing of visa charges means that the cost of visas will continue to rise with no correlating improvement in assessment times. In addition, there is the fact that the government is planning on having a new department office building built in Canberra at a cost of $256 million.

So the minister is closing a regional suburban immigration office, with an expected saving of only $212,000, at the same time as he is rewarding the brass with a shiny new $256 million headquarters, with an armoury whose cost to construct, ironically, is the same amount as the department is expected to save by closing the Dandenong office. Why is the minister allowing service staff, the people who actually process visas, to be slashed from his department? Can the minister explain why the government is considering the true number of employees being slashed from the department in the budget papers? Why is the minister allowing staff to be cut from the department's visa and citizenship group while announcing sweeping changes in both areas? Can the minister guarantee visa processing times will not continue to increase while the department's workforce numbers are savaged? Why is the minister allowing the outsourcing of departmental jobs, rather than keeping them in house? Why is the minister allowing his department to prop up the department's workforce by using labour hire companies, including some 446 IT staff alone? What do these agreements mean for the cost of running the department? What do these agreements mean for the efficiency of the department? How can the minister justify staff being slashed from the department while commissioning a new, $256 million building? Why is the minister closing the Dandenong office and building a new armoury in Canberra for the same exact cost, $212,000, as the saving? When will the minister stand up for the department's workforce and protect their jobs?

See this speech in context