Peter Dutton as Home Affairs Minister liked to portray himself as the; "Touch cop on the beat" when it came to dealing with criminals and undesirables entering Australia. Dutton when in government made a lot of political capital with his tough stance on refugees. Now, according to Labor's Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil; "people with criminal convictions "walked into the country" on Peter Dutton's watch. "And on his watch, foreign criminals oversaw large rings of human trafficking including slavery and other forms of labour exploration." Most might think this is nothing more than O'Neil attempting political point scoring off Dutton. What O'Neil has to back up her claims about Dutton is the 'Rapid Review' into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System, conducted by former Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon. The report found "grotesque abuses" of temporary migrants including sexual exploitation and human trafficking. While Dutton was minister and during the almost ten years of the Coalition in power immigration compliance staff was cut by one third! These cuts along with a fixation with refugees entering Australia, allowed foreign criminal gangs a free hand to exploit a weak immigration control system, bring in sex slaves and underpaid workers from third world countries.

I'm not interested in politicians slagging each other off. They are all rubbish.

Australian governments, irrespective of brand, need to crack down on immigration before we end up like Sweden, where it has been announced that , because of "irresponsible immigration", it is now their intention to use troops to help police in the fight against immigrant gangs and immigrant drug dealers.

The immigration policies of the Liberal/Labor duopoly have been 'irresponsible' for years. Ever since the Howard government said that 'we' - meaning he - would decide who came here, then jacked up the legal immigrant numbers to an unprecedented level.

There is nothing to choose between Liberal or Labor when it comes to immigration lunacy, nor is there anything to choose between the sleaziness of politicians themselves .

Have to agree TTBN both bunches of sleazoids push the same mass immigration nonsense without consulting the people, old mate Pauly just wants to have a shot at Mr Dutton and the libs

What I'm doing is pointing out the hypocrisy of Dutton and the Noalition on yet another area of immigration, their deliberate failure to deal with illegal human trafficking into Australia whilst in government. Maybe they seen the exploitation of sex slaves and low paid illegal workers as legitimate "free enterprise" activity in the labour market, I don't know. What I do know is on the Noalition's watch immigration compliance staff numbers were cut from a high of 360 under Labor, to an under resourced level of 203, that's 157 less front line people investigating illegal immigration into Australia. Whilst the peanut gallery of sycophantic Noalition supporters were cheering Dutton and co's supposed tough stance on refugees, Dutton as minister left the front door wide open for criminal gangs to exploit the system. Labor has committed an extra $50 million to re-establish the integrity of the visa system. The Nixon report shows that the Noalition with Dutton as leader cannot be trusted with immigration policy when in government.

Just another case of Public Servants not doing what they're getting paid for & then blaming those who trusted them enough to give them the privilege of a job !

Hi Paul,

It is concerning that deficiencies in our immigration system
are such that criminal gangs from around the world would
find Australia attractive to operate in.

When we're told that between 2013 and 2022 the number of
immigration compliance staff was cut from 360 to 203 - that
should ring alarm bells.

The current government should act quickly and restore
compliance staff resources as well as funding to the
2013 levels. The integrity of the visa system needs to
be ensured.

The current government also needs to launch a crackdown on
criminals exploiting the visa system.

Public pressure needs to be applied. Finger-pointing is
not going to achieve anything productive. Action is
necessary.