Visa services of the department of immigration and passenger clearances at customs are expected to slow down significantly over the next 10 days with the start of “protected industrial action” by the immigration department workers from today through to 26 June 2015.

DIBP has warned that during this period, airports, client service centres, ports, container examination facilities and visa processes will be affected with interruptions to helplines, visa processing services, passenger clearances and customs clearance services amongst others.

Members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) covering more than half the public service are planning a series of half-day strikes to attend mass meetings around the country to protect their rights, conditions and pay from federal government attacks. According to media reports the union has not conducted such comprehensive industrial action for at least twenty years.

“Many of our members have already taken some protected industrial action. Now it’s time to do more and it’s time to do it together,” a statement from the CPSU noted.

This is an opportunity for you to send a clear message to the Government and Minister Abetz that the public sector won’t accept cuts to rights, conditions and real wages, let alone to the cuts to take home pay some members face." a statement from the CPSU noted.

On 1 July 2015 the Australian Border Force (ABF) will commence operations within the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, which will formally merge with the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service on the same date. It marks a key milestone in the process of change which has seen the Department of Immigration “shift its focus from nation building and migrant settlement, towards a greater emphasis on border security.”

Commentators have called the merger ‘the militarisation of our borders’, and argued that there has not been adequate public discussion or discussion with the unions of this significant shift in the Department’s purpose.

Media reports have indicated that morale in the department is low. Staff jobs shrank about 10 per cent last year with some 20 per cent of the department's senior executives and about 100 of its 530 middle managers at Executive Level 2 classification expected to clear out their desks by the end of 2015.

Earlier this year, it was reported that the 8500 public servants at the Immigration Department were expected to face random or targeted breathalysing and drug testing in their offices under a tough new workplace regime. DIBP officers were also told that they must dob-in colleagues they suspect of misconduct, even if it occurs away from the workplace. There will also be a crackdown on second jobs, social media use and sloppy appearances among the department's public servants, as the Customs agency hierarchy tightens its grip on Immigration.