Home Affairs tech still needs work: O’Neil

Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil said sweeping reforms to Australia’s migration system will demand new IT systems, but said it’s too soon to know how large a project will be needed.

Speaking to the National Press Club on Thursday, O’Neil was sharply critical of the tech put in front of home affairs staff.

“I really want people to understand how much the administration of this system is creating poor outcomes for the country,” she said in response to a question.

“I have sat with visa processors in the Home Affairs department, and honestly, hats off to these people.

"They are working between four and five computer systems, cutting and pasting things like you would not believe.

"The state of this IT is a real issue.”

However, she said, reform of the migration system itself should happen before enabling IT systems are revamped.

“Attempts have been made to deal with this IT problem before we’ve actually defined what the migration system should look like," she noted.

“That’s not very smart. We need to deal with the reform exercise first."

O’Neil singled out the now-discontinued permissions capability platform as an example of a system created before the policy requirements were known.

“We axed the permissions capability because the project was a disaster," O’Neil said.

“We need to solve the policy question first. The reason that we have had endless attempts to digitise this system that haven’t quite worked is that no-one’s done the hard thinking first.”

Earlier this month, Home Affairs officials told a parliamentary committee their staff are under pressure from the aging systems they have to work with.

O’Neil said there will be sweeping reform of the migration system, with a view to better aligning the migration intake with Australia’s skills requirements.