Australian Border Force officers continue to make the same mistakes. Photo: Australian Government.
Department of Home Affairs immigration officers wrongfully detained 11 people, including an Australian citizen, during the 2023-24 financial year, the Commonwealth Ombudsman has found.
Most wrongful detention cases were a result of errors previously known to Home Affairs and could have been avoided if existing policies and procedures were properly followed, the Ombudsman’s report said.
One person was detained for 18 months due to an administrative error.
In another case, an Australian Border Force officer planned and conducted a detention operation without doing a basic electronic search of Home Affairs’ records beforehand, which would have shown that the person held a valid visa.
Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said Home Affairs needed to do more to take accountability and acknowledge the human impact of their actions.
“Wrongfully depriving a person of their liberty is serious,” he said.
“Since we began monitoring the issue in 2005, we have observed similar types of errors causing people to be wrongfully detained.”
Mr Anderson said Home Affairs had not improved the way it addresses its mistakes with the individuals it has wrongfully detained, nor offered any form of redress, formal apology or financial compensation.
The report said that although the Department may identify and acknowledge its mistake to the person detained, the onus is on them to navigate the complex and often costly process of lodging a civil claim to seek damages.
Because affected individuals were only informed verbally, instead of in writing, on their release that a mistake had been made, they may not be aware of their ability to make such a claim or have the information required to support it.
Only one of the 11 had made a civil claim for unlawful detention.
The report noted a previous 2007 finding that there was a culture among compliance officers at the time of exercising the detention power either carelessly or prematurely.
“The continued prevalence of errors arising from a lack of personal responsibility for decision making and a failure to follow policies and procedures (particularly in planned detention operations) indicate that this culture may still be present,” the report said.
In 10 of the 11 cases, officers failed to follow relevant policies and procedures. In many cases, officers replicated previous errors that the Department had attempted to address through changes to policies, procedures and training.
The Ombudsman made three recommendations to improve Home Affairs’ policies and procedures to reduce the risk of wrongful detention and provide clear pathways for redress to the people it has wrongfully detained.
Home Affairs accepted all three recommendations, which included requiring additional checks to be completed before planned detention operations, as well as formally apologising to people it has wrongfully detained and providing them with written information about their rights to seek compensation through the Compensation for Detriment due to Defective Administration Scheme.
“The intent of these recommendations is that Home Affairs reflects on a mindset that places undue trust in historical decisions and prioritises swift action over careful deliberation,” added Mr Anderson.
The report found that wrongful detention could occur due to communication breakdowns, data integrity and administrative errors, reliance on erroneous assumptions, a failure to take personal responsibility for decision making, failure to give proper notice of visa decisions, and misinterpretation or misapplication of the law.
