Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, in writing, on 1 June 2011:

What total sum of funding is provided by the Government to Malaysia and Indonesia as part of any regional, bilateral or other arrangements to improve the sophistication of border clearance procedures and technology generally, and specifically in relation to the (a) installation of (i) forgery detection, and (ii) bio metric identification, technology at primary clearance points, and (b) training of immigration and border officers in detecting fraud.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

The Government does not provide funding to Malaysia and Indonesia. The Government provides technical assistance to these countries through the provision of training and capacity building activities. Under the Regional Skills Development Program (RSDP) my Department provides training to immigration officials on document examination, intelligence, facial recognition and investigation.

My Department has also supported the installation of Indonesia’s border management system which has delivered sophisticated border management systems to 30 ports in Indonesia to enable reliable detection of people of concern to Indonesian authorities. This work includes the installation of bio-metric technology. My Department has been working with Indonesia since 2006 on this project.

In 2010–11, the Department and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service provided the Immigration Department of Malaysia with document examination equipment that is being used on a daily basis at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.