Immigration gets funds for IT upgrade

The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Amanda Vanstone, said the four-year, AU$500 million package -- including AU$119 million in offsets -- was designed to make the department's systems "more efficient, more accurate and better networked".

"Independent IT reviews finalised since last year's Palmer and Comrie reports found that the current systems were not meeting information needs, to the detriment of our most important stakeholders -- our clients.

"We agreed it wasn't good enough, we said we'd fix it, and that's what we're doing," she said.

The IT transformation is being undertaken under the banner of the Systems for People overhaul, which aims to give departmental officers a portal-based view of individual clients.

DIMIA came under fire over its handling of cases such as those involving Vivian Alvarez and Cornelia Rau.