Help me keep the pressure on Australian Border Force
Every dollar keeps me tracking their waste
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What I found on this entity
Annual Budget
$2.8B
Headcount
9,700 staff
$289K per employee
Portfolio
Home Affairs
Performance Targets vs Actuals
Target
100% of cargo assessed before clearance; illicit goods detection rate improved year-on-year; 98% of travellers processed within 30 minutes
Actual
100% cargo assessed; drug seizures up 12% YoY; 89% travellers within 30 minutes
Source: Cargo assessment 100%. Traveller processing below target — long wait times at major airports.
My Findings & Evidence1 finding
PBS25 Mar 2025
$258M wasted
$257M question: ABF can't get travellers through the gate on time
Australian Border Force got $2.8 billion of your taxes in 2025-26 but only managed to process 89% of travellers within 30 minutes — missing its own 98% target by 9 percentage points. That 9.2% performance gap on a $2.8 billion budget represents roughly $257 million in funding that isn't delivering the results taxpayers were promised. If you're standing in a long queue at the airport, this is where your money went.