Quote:The Malaysia issue
Malaysia's rise as a source country for people who are illegally in Australia has accelerated in recent years.
The ABF would not provide a historical breakdown of figures, but it is believed the number of Malaysian unlawful non-citizens has almost doubled since 2015. The ABF said the total number of overstayers has remained "relatively static" at about 63,000.
Malaysia is one of only eight countries whose citizens can apply for an Electronic Travel Authority visa online. Those visas can be granted in a matter of hours.
James Copeman, the ABF field and removal operations commander, told the Joint Standing Committee on Migration in June that more than 300 people were refused entry to Australia as part of Bonasus.
He did not clarify why their entry was blocked, including whether any were found to have fraudulent passports.
Christine Dacey, a first assistant secretary at the Department of Home Affairs, told the same committee hearing that the ETAs were "probably the lightest touch visa that we offer".
"Malaysia is one of the countries that has access to it. I think it would be fair to say that we have identified ... that there is an issue there," she said.
Neither official outlined steps taken by the department — other than Bonasus, which is no longer running — to stop the flow of people arriving from Malaysia to work illegally in Australia.
A Department of Home Affairs insider, who could not be identified as he was speaking without authorisation, believes there has been a crackdown at airports
He said Home Affairs officers — particularly in Melbourne — are increasingly turning away Malaysian passport holders.
The insider said Malaysians were renowned for returning to Australia with a passport in a slightly different name only months after they had been deported for working illegally, using the same counterfeiting networks that had been exploited by people from other countries.
Fingerprints taken when they were first deported confirmed they were the same person.
The insider said it was almost impossible to detect someone travelling with a fraudulently obtained passport, as Australian authorities were unable to determine the legitimacy of the documents used to grant it.
This underlined the department's push to increasingly use controversial biometric technology, he said, including facial recognition software, which gave them another tool to uncover fraud.
The department said it was working closely with the Malaysian government to prevent people using fraudulently obtained passports to enter Australia. Part of the measures put in place include employing Airline Liaison Officers in Malaysia to monitor flights to Australia.
"ALOs are highly skilled in document examination, impostor detection and passenger assessment," the ABF said.
The officers prevented the travel of 37 Malaysian nationals, the ABF said, but it could not clarify whether any of those individuals had fraudulently obtained passports.
The Malaysia embassy in Australia and officials in Malaysia declined to comment on what was being done to counteract passport fraud or people smuggling.
Migration agents: part of the problem and the solution
Jason Wood, the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, believes organised criminals are involved in the movement of people from Malaysia to Australia and there is only so much Australian authorities can do to halt the flow.
His committee is currently investigating the role of migration agents, who often lodge applications for protection visas for Malaysians arriving in Australia on an ETA visa.
Mr Wood believes the applications represent an orchestrated scam that gives those who apply work rights in Australia until their claims are finalised, a process that can take eight years. The committee was alerted to the problem by migration agents.
Applications by Malaysians have increased from 4800 to 9060 in the past two years.
"Any time you can make money, organised crime groups will get involved and that's precisely what's happened here," Mr Wood said.
Migration agent Libby Hogarth said she told the Department of Home Affairs in 2016 that Malaysians were rorting ETA visas on a grand scale.
Ms Hogarth, a migration agent for more than 25 years who does much of her work at farms along the Murray River, dismisses the rhetoric about Operation Sovereign Borders putting people smugglers out of business.
Her first thought, after 15 Malaysians approached her on a visit to the Riverland in South Australia at least two years ago, was that "the people smugglers who have lost their work in Indonesia have moved on to a different model."