The media and politicians are inevitably arguing Anthony Albanese's decision to move Clare O'Neil and Andrew Giles and replace them with Tony Burke at Home Affairs reflects their failure to fix our immigration system. The reality is much more complex as few Australians would be aware of the mess they inherited, particularly following the mis-management of the Dutton/Pezzullo administration.

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O'Neil and Giles improved numerous parts of the visa system, particularly employer sponsored migration and migrant worker exploitation, but few will give them credit for those. The focus will be on three main areas of immigration policy in which O'Neil and Giles are alleged to have failed.

First, they released a large number of criminal non-citizens following last year's High Court decision on indefinite detention and are alleged to have failed to find an acceptable solution.

That situation arose after Peter Dutton significantly increased using the Character provisions of the Migration Act to cancel visas of long-standing residents upon completion of their prison sentence but without putting in place adequate arrangements for their deportation. As a result, the number of Character detainees increased significantly and the average time in detention blew out.

READ MORE: Labor's rushed 'emergency' immigration laws labelled 'undemocratic, botched'

That made it inevitable........

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