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Andrews pledges to cooperate with Labor on fixing any loopholes found in visa regime

ABC Radio asks Andrews about reports in the Nine papers of significant gaps in Australia’s visa regime allowing migration agents and fixers to set up so-called visa farms.

I would encourage the Labor government to have a look at the issues in that report and see whether or not there are concerns, there are loopholes and if so I can assure them I will work very cooperatively to get them fixed.

Your department was found to have leaked details of a boat turnback which had come from Sri Lanka on election day this year … and yet you’re criticising this government for … allegedly leaking?

It was a deliberate decision that was taken on the day. And the reason that that decision was taken was because of transparency, and for deterrence ... the issue was that there was a lot of a lot of criticism about discussions of boat arrivals and the fact that we, as a Coalition, were very concerned about whether or not there would be increases in boat arrivals.

Now on election day, when that boat arrived, and I was advised of it early in the in the morning and the prime minister at the time, Scott Morrison would have been advised either before or after – I’m not sure when he was actually advised of that … The decision was taken that in the interests of transparency, the information would be released and it would be released by the agencies responsible because that was the most apolitical way to release that information.