A Senate committee has rejected the Morrison Government’s planned outsourcing of Australia’s visa processing, warning that it threatens the integrity of the immigration system:
The Senate committee, chaired by Labor’s Kim Carr, found the “privatisation” of Australia’s visa application and assessment system would reduce service quality and price gouge visa applicants.
But the Federal Government dismissed the criticism saying the proposed “Global Digital Platform” is needed to reduce processing times as visa applications are projected to increase to more than 13 million per year in the next decade.
The committee recommended the $1 billion tender process be scrapped in favour of more funding to support the Department of Home Affairs.
“Outsourcing Australia’s visa processing system is a project fraught with risks and the committee is not satisfied that these risks have been sufficiently addressed,” the committee concluded.
It said international experience, particularly in the United Kingdom, has shown the outsourcing model could have dramatic consequences.
“Profit-making entities are driven to find ways to maximize their profits, and this inevitably leads to reduced service quality and/or higher fees,” the committee reported…
During the committee hearings, the Migration Institute of Australia (MIA) expressed “grave concerns” about “commercialising” visa processing, citing tension between profit and service delivery.
Privatising Australia’s visa processing is unambiguously bad policy.
Visa processing is an essential government service and a natural monopoly. Its sale will inevitably result in end-users being gouged by the new monopoly private owners, as well as a reduction in transparency.
The first assistant secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Andrew Kefford, recently boasted that visa privatisation is the “most significant reform to the Australian immigration system in more than 30 years”, and claimed it would make the “visa business” profitable by including “premium services for high-value applicants”, while providing “commercial value-added services”.
In other words, the Morrison Government would effectively make Australia’s visa system ‘pay to win’ and a profit-based. This is exactly what has happened in the United Kingdom, which privatised its visa processing in 2014 with disastrous results (see here and here).
Adding a profit motive and turning the visa system into a quantity-based “pay to win” business will also eliminate what little integrity there is left, and risks Australia losing complete control of migration numbers.
This whole plan is another case study in the Game of Mates.
