Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties I present the committee's report entitled Report 145, treaties tabled on 26 August and 2 September 2014.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—Today I present the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report 145. The report contains the committee's views on three proposed treaties: the force posture agreement between Australia and the United States, the agreement between Australia and Japan for the transfer of defence equipment and technology and the agreement between Australia and the US for the sharing of visa and immigration information.

The force posture initiatives were announced in 2011 to support our efforts to deepen our long-standing alliance with the United States. The initiatives involve the annual rotation of the US Marines Corps and United States Air Force personnel in northern Australia. This year's rotation involved approximately 1,500 personnel and that number will grow to over 2,500 personnel in the coming years. The regular influx of United States personnel is expected to provide a considerable economic benefits of the Northern Territory and Australia, particularly with regard to the retail, transport, recreation and other service sectors.

The force posture agreement provides the legal, policy and financial framework required for the full implementation of the two force posture initiatives. For example, the agreement requires respect for Australian sovereignty and laws. It imposes obligations for consultation. It also states that initiatives will occur at Australian facilities, consistent with Australia's long-standing policy that there are no foreign military bases on Australian soil. It provides certainty around the conditions for US access to Australian-owned facilities, as well as types of activities the US forces will be able to conduct. The force posture initiatives represent an important new element in our defence cooperation with the United States and reaffirms our commitment to that alliance.

The agreement with Japan for the transfer of defence equipment and technology will facilitate Australian access to Japan's world-renowned capability in this area. The agreement will allow Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation and Japan's Technical Research and Development Institute to work together more closely on areas of common interest and mutual benefit. The treaty is part of the broader move to deepen Australia-Japan defence cooperation in a range of areas, including in training and exercises, personnel exchanges, maritime security and peacekeeping.

The agreement with the US to share visa and immigration information is required to allow the automation of the existing immigration information sharing process. The process involves the exchange of fingerprints for checking against each country's respective biometric data holdings. The automation of the process is expected to increase the speed, efficiency and volume of that exchange. Currently, the US and Australia exchange up to 20,000 fingerprints a year. If there is a fingerprint match, then agreed biographic information, immigration history and travel information is exchanged. Such matches have uncovered identity and immigration fraud. When fully implemented, this automation system is expected to allow us to exchange in excess of one million fingerprints with the US per year for checking.

The committee supports the ratification of all of these treaties discussed in this report. On behalf the committee, I commend the report to the House.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—On report No. 145 from the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I concur with the remarks made by the chair of the committee. I thank the chair, other members of the committee and the committee secretariat for the work that they have done in preparing this report.

I did want to make some remarks about chapter 4 of the report, which is the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the United States of America for the sharing of visa and immigration information. This agreement is required for the automation of the existing immigration information sharing process. This automation is expected to enable increased speed, efficiency and volumes of exchanges. The present arrangements with the United States have enabled up to 20,000 fingerprints per year to be sent for checking. In the event that there is a fingerprint match, then agreed biographic information, immigration history and travel information is exchanged with the country that had the match. Such matches have in the past uncovered identity and immigration fraud.

This is important. Frankly, the extent of immigration fraud is not widely appreciated. Indeed, there were very serious reports in August this year that visa fraud is widespread, but it is not being investigated because the Department of Immigration's investigation and enforcement capacity has collapsed. It has been reported that as many as nine in 10 skilled migrant visas may be fraudulent and that there was a Somali people smuggling cell in Melbourne, which was linked to a terrorist suspect; but the investigation into that ceased due to lack of resources. Meaningful investigations and prosecution activity of migration fraud in the Melbourne office has effectively ceased. A 2010 investigation concluded that around 90 per cent or more of 40,000 fees applications in the general skilled migration program lodged per year for the previous three years were suspect. A 2009 investigation concluded that the student visa program was failing, the general skilled migration program was failing and the falsification of qualifications was prolific.

A key problem is that since 2004 the migration program has skyrocketed that the resources of the department have not increased to keep pace with that. The permanent program has gone up from 100,000 at that time to 240,000 now and we have over one million people in Australia on temporary visas who have work rights. It is simply beyond the department to check the validity of the claims that people are making about their qualifications and work experience. It is apparently even beyond the capacity of the department to close down passport swapping scams—this is not Operation Sovereign Borders; this is operation open borders! I think we need a parliamentary inquiry to look at this. We should learn from these reports that it is better to put real effort into educating and training young Australians and making sure that we have labour market testing for employers so that young Australian graduates and young Australians who are unemployed are offered the jobs before we look overseas.

In fact, I have asked the Minister for Immigration to investigate the reports in The Age of 8 August this year, which were that a corrupt Department of Immigration official helped run a $3 million criminal migration racket involving more than 1,000 fraudulent visa applications. I have asked whether it is correct that the government has issued new licences in the past six months to migration agents who were previously identified by the Department of Immigration as having bribed employers to obtain fake work references for visa applicants. I have asked whether the government will review these licences with a view to withdrawing them. So these are serious issues. In October 2009, a departmental report made the startling finding that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship may have been responsible for granting a record number of student visas to people who may not be considered genuine students, as well as granting permanent residence to skilled migration applicants who did not have the skills being claimed. I hope that these very serious matters will be given the attention they deserve, and I think the House for the opportunity to make these brief remarks.