Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I'm advised that strict qualifying criteria apply to all online applications to maintain the integrity of the department's border management and to enable the department to control volumes of applications. Pre COVID, around 280,000 MCVs were granted per year. Applicants must be outside Australia at the time of application, but the application may be finalised when the applicant is onshore. Applicants are checked against a central movement alert list, which checks biographical data, such as name or passport number, for matches against specific people or documents of concern. It will refer an MCV application with either a MAL match or a potential match for manual processing. Applications are also checked against the safeguard system, which is a rules based risk-profiling system that alerts processing officers to risks and suggests potential treatments, such as further document fraud checks, site visits or interviews. It may also refer an application to MGPC for manual processing.

Checks against these systems run automatically, several times, in application processing so that applications are frequently checked against the latest contents of the risk systems. Discretionary checks can also be performed by the processing office. If an applicant does not meet the relevant requirements after a manual assessment, the application is refused and the applicant is advised. An application which has been automatically or manually granted may be ceased under subclause 33(b)(3). The decision-maker may make a written declaration, for the purposes of this section, that it is undesirable that a person or any persons in a class of persons travel to and enter Australia or remain in Australia.