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ASHLYNNE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ashlynne McGhee, this is 7am.

Barely a week goes by when the Department of Home Affairs isn’t under the blowtorch of media or political scrutiny.

In one way, the level of scrutiny is to be expected. When you’ve got a department so huge it takes in security, intelligence, immigration and policing functions, some 14,000 staff under the one secretary, then flare ups are kind of inevitable.

The question is though, should one department have that much power?

Today, The Saturday Paper’s Chief Political Correspondent Karen Barlow, on the inner workings of the super department.

It’s Monday June 17.

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ASHLYNNE:

Karen, you've been looking into the Home Affairs department. It's often called a super department, tell me about why that is.

KAREN:

Well, it's super because there's a lot. There's a lot to it. It's a domestic security and social cohesion throw together, but the idea is that you can't have one without the other.

Previously there was an immigration and multicultural affairs department, but now this is so much more.

Border Force really, sort of, was the starting point. Operation Sovereign Borders, which was created with Scott Morrison.

Audio Excerpt - Scott Morrison:

“You have been brought to this place here because you have sought to illegally enter Australia by boat.”

KAREN:

Australia had years of dealing with the post September 11 environment and this supercharged debate over borders and asylum seekers.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 1:

“From July next year, the federal government wants to replace customs with a new agency it calls the Australian Border Force. It's a model similar to the Department of Homeland Security in the United States.”

KAREN:

What really made him as Immigration Minister was Border Force, and that was something that brought in guns and uniforms to this big force that was dealing with the arrivals of asylum seekers by boat.

Audio Excerpt - ABF Spokesperson 1:

“ABF officers would be positioned at various locations around the CBD speaking with any individuals we crossed paths with.”

Audio Excerpt - ABF Spokesperson 2:

“You should be aware of the conditions of your visa. If you commit visa fraud, you should know it's only a matter of time before you get caught.”

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 2:

“And of course, this has raised many questions about the legality of that, and also, how much right the ABF does have on those streets.”

KAREN:

And then, in 2017, we had this push to pull together it all into this super home affairs department.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 3:

“In what he calls the biggest national security shake up in 40 years. Malcolm Turnbull has announced a new super portfolio of Home Affairs headed up by Peter Dutton.”

KAREN:

This is Malcolm Turnbull's time as Prime Minister.

Audio Excerpt - Malcolm Turnbull:

“We can't take ‘and if it ain't broke, don't fix it’ approach to security arrangements. We're taking the best elements of our intelligence and national security community and making them better.”

KAREN:

This is something that was pushed by this charismatic, hawkish and very sort of precise bureaucrat called Mike Pezzullo. And we had the first Home Affairs minister as Peter Dutton. And we all know him now as the Opposition Leader, but this is something that really sort of got pulled together by these two hard edged individuals into home affairs.

So we've got ASIO, we've got the Australian Federal Police, we've got Border Force, the old customs, and now with the Operation Sovereign Borders pulled together with immigration, a lot of different things all threaded together to create this super department. And this is something that was really interesting because, for the first time since 1945, we don't have a standalone immigration department for this nation of migrants. So it's a really fascinating pull together, and it's been troubled.

ASHLYNNE:

And so then, Labor’s elected to Government. What was the situation like at Home Affairs? What did they find?

KAREN:

What Labour found when it came to office was a hard edged portfolio that was riddled with problems. So there was visa scams, there were enormous amounts of litigation against the minister, which is fairly normal but increasing, there was offshore detention, and there was this eternal problem of indefinite detention.

And it's seen as a department that is not something that people want to work for. There was also an issue of the unwillingness of the department and they immediately did something about that. And they sent the Australian Federal Police back to the Attorney-General's Department, and then later on established the Emergency Management Agency to deal with disasters. So they sort of cut something back, added something else on. And there is still this eternal question about what to do with this and that's something that has not been answered yet.

And so Mike Pezzullo, the hawkish, well-connected, very determined, bureaucrat in charge of Home Affairs, he ruled at Home Affairs with an iron fist. There’s a story that Abul Rizvi, a former immigration deputy secretary, tells about him. He said that, when soon after taking over the portfolio, he said to staff we're not Care Bears anymore. Now, Pezullo denies he said that, but Rizvi says he knows people in the room. So anyway, that story still circulates.

Getting back to Pezullo, he was there, and they brought on Claire O'Neill as the Home Affairs Minister and Andrew Giles, often seen as a lieutenant of Anthony Albanese, he was brought in as Immigration Minister and immigration is still not a cabinet portfolio. He is the Junior Minister to Claire O'Neill and so, they, the senior figures in this troubled department, and it took a while for some of the controversies to emerge under Labor, but they were there but bubbling under the surface.

ASHLYNNE:

But of course, he's no longer secretary. What happened?

KAREN:

No. Well, it's quite a controversy. Look, there were a few things that happened while Mike Pezzullo was secretary,

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 1:

“Do you accept that you made dreadful errors of judgment that brought your public service career to an end?”

Audio Excerpt - Mike Pezzullo:

“Yes, I made mistakes and I need to own those mistakes, and I need to learn from them…”

KAREN:

And, there was one that finally took the cake. And that was the fact that some leaked, inappropriate text messages, a whole stream of them were leaked to the media, showing inappropriate relations with a liberal powerbroker and former State Director of the Liberal Party, Scott Briggs.

Audio Excerpt - Mike Pezzullo:

“Mike Pezullo has been asked to step aside while this investigation takes place. This is one of the most powerful positions in the public service…”

KAREN:

He was talking about suggesting political promotions, which is not seemly for a non-partisan bureaucrat.

Audio Excerpt - Mike Pezzullo:

“It's something that I regret. I made a mistake, I’m moving on. I want to focus on making a positive contribution to national security but in a very different way now.”

ASHLYNNE:

Karen, it feels like hardly a month goes by without some kind of flare up politically that involves home affairs. And again, it's under a huge amount of scrutiny in this current immigration debate. Can you tell me what's been going on there?

KAREN:

Yeah, we're talking about the overturning of visa cancellations made by the tribunal under the directions from the minister. These are tribunal cases, that can be to do with awful cases such as sex offenders, there are other criminal matters. These are, what I'm told by Abul Rizvi the former immigration deputy secretary, often lineball cases that we don't know the full details to but they get blown up in the media.

So there's huge pressure on the department. I mean, there's, I'd say there's always pressure on the Home Affairs department and Immigration in particular which also places pressure on Stephanie Foster, who is the replacement for Mike Pezzullo. She came up as an Associate Secretary in charge of immigration. She also came from the Department of Prime Minister and cabinet and she has a Defence background. She's very capable. She's had quite a large and interesting rise to be in charge of the Home Affairs department, but there are pressures that she’s had to do with resourcing that she hasn't been able to overcome.

ASHLYNNE:

“After the break, new leader, new vision. How’s Home Affairs fairing under its new boss?”

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ASHLYNNE:

Karen, we've been talking about the Home Affairs department and what's going on there after Mike Pezzullo was ousted. What's his replacement Stephanie Foster had to say about how the department's faring?

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 2:

“I now call officers from the Department of Home Affairs, including Australian Border Force, in relation to cross portfolio, corporate and general matters. Miss Foster, welcome. Would you like to make…”

KAREN:

Stephanie Foster has made the large admission that her department has broke protocol by not informing the minister of concerning cases.

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 3:

“Miss Foster, in relation to the direction 99 issue, the Minister for Immigration, Andrew Giles, has essentially thrown the department under the bus in question time today and said it's your fault that he wasn't advised of a number of these cases being overturned by the AAT, Is that right?”

Audio Excerpt - Stephanie Foster:

“It's correct that he wasn't informed, Senator. “

KAREN:

So here we have the Minister, blaming the department for not informing him of concerning cases.

Audio Excerpt - Stephanie Foster:

“We did not adequately resource that function, and it was not being done in a timely way, And we had not advised Minister Giles of that particular case.”

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 3:

“That particular case, or there are a number of cases that he was asked about today and that are in the media?”

Audio Excerpt - Stephanie Foster:

“A number of cases, Senator.”

KAREN:

But, this is an issue for resourcing for Stephanie Foster and she's trying to get to the bottom of it.

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 3:

“When did this become apparent?”

Audio Excerpt - Stephanie Foster:

“I became aware of it, Senator, just in the last couple of days.”

Audio Excerpt - Speaker 3:

“As a result of the media coverage about these cases, presumably.”

Audio Excerpt - Stephanie Foster:

“That's correct, Senator.”

KAREN:

Now, I've spoken to insiders who say that it's quite odd that this has taken place and that there should be enough resourcing in this area because we're talking about a particular area within immigration which is to do with visa compliance, which is always an area of controversy. It's also to do with the legal area, which is also always well resourced, so I'm told. But, resourcing something has not happened in an appropriate way for the minister to be fully across what is happened in his portfolio, particularly to do with these concerning cases.

The other interesting thing about Stephanie Foster, she also popped up in estimates not so long ago. She was seen as breaking protocol, I guess, for a non-partisan bureaucrat. She was seen winking during an appearance in in estimates, and that caused controversy at the time. She is a very interesting character. She's also been widely reported as driving around Canberra in a red Porsche.

ASHLYNNE:

Talk to me a little bit more about the relationship between the Senior Minister, Clare O'Neill, and her Secretary, Stephanie Foster.

KAREN:

It is an interesting one. You'd hear from Claire O'Neill and Andrew Giles say that they have a very warm and constructive relationship with Stephanie Foster. There is a bit of a public interest in the relationship because we have had, earlier this year, the reporting that Stephanie Foster was seen leaving the ministerial wing of Parliament House in tears. This wasn't denied by Claire O'Neill at the time, but again, she stressed that there is a warm and constructive relationship. They do, she says, work well together. But, we have this admission here about resourcing that just keeps going on. We keep hearing this issue about Home Affairs. It's so large that the Labor Government has put more money into it. But it's still not enough to deal with the large and many, many pronged areas that Home Affairs has to deal with.

ASHLYNNE:

So we've got a cumbersome, somewhat dysfunctional mega department that's responsible for some pretty life altering decisions. Dare I ask how it's impacting the people who actually have to interact with Home Affairs?

KAREN:

Well look, it is every day still grinding away on the many areas that it has responsibility for. In the immigration area there is a visa backlog that is slowly being whittled away. There are, I'm told, about 18,000 litigation cases against the Minister. That's a huge caseload for the legal area of home affairs. We recently had, as a bit of a slice into an area of home affairs, an audit that the Audit Office did into Migration Agents and the regulation of them by Home Affairs, and that put that back in the spotlight. It pretty much found there was no regulation of Migration Agents by Home Affairs. This is a troubled area with dodgy operators and some quite vulnerable people, like transitional workers are most at risk here and that that was an area of concern, and Home Affairs says it's going to be responding to all of those recommendations. But this is not just about immigration. This is about law enforcement. This is about domestic spying with ASIO. This is about citizenship and it's about borders, and it's about so much more. And there’s big questions about the future of home affairs.

I think there are always questions about whether it should be broken up a little bit more, but, I think, it will always be an area of controversy. Mainly because it is so politically charged. It is something that is always a hot topic for the major parties, and even some of the minor parties like The Greens. It's something that we'll be talking about for many years to come.

ASHLYNNE:

Thanks so much for your time, Karen.

KAREN:

Thank you.

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SCOTT:

Also in the news today,

Bruce Lehrmann is scheduled to appear for a committal hearing in a Toowoomba Magistrates Court today facing two counts of rape.

Lehrmann has not yet been required to enter a plea in the case, but it is expected he will plead not guilty if the magistrate rules that a trial will proceed.

And,

Indian Authorities are likely to prosecute one of India’s most famous living authors, Arundhati Roy, with anti-terrorism and sedition charges because she allegedly commented back in 2010 that the disputed territory of Kashmir should be independent from India.

The charges have been given the go-ahead by a member of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party which has expanded terrorism laws to silence critics.

I’m Scott Mitchell, this is 7am, thanks for listening. Ashlynne McGhee will be back with you tomorrow.

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