Opposition Home Affairs Minister James Paterson has said he is concerned that the federal government is underfunding the Home Affairs department after senate estimates revealed the department’s budget had potentially been slashed by over a billion dollars.
Home Affairs is the agency that oversees Australia’s migration, cyber and infrastructure security, national security and resilience, and border-related functions.
The funding cut was revealed during a senate estimates budget hearing (pdf) on May 22, which revealed that the federal government had reduced the funding for Australia’s primary domestic security agency by $300 million in this financial year ending 2024.
However, when taking into account the cuts made by the federal government from the Coalition last budget in March 2022 prior to the election which had seen the department promised $8.59 billion, but only deliver $7.48 billion, the department suffered a total drop of $1.1 billion in funding….