Our approach

The Australian Border Force is focused on our national security, the protection of our community, the enforcement of our laws, including the collection of revenue, and the security of our maritime jurisdiction, resources and environment. 

We develop and coordinate our border management framework in conjunction with partner agencies to deliver Australia’s customs, trade and industry policy.

We are an intelligence-led, mobile and technologically enabled force deploying resources to provide the greatest effect, including offshore, domestically and in our maritime zone. 

We also work to counter threats ahead of the border, employing sophisticated risk assessments through our visa programmes and working with international partners to deliver enforcement outcomes.

Australian Border Force officers are uniformed and part of a disciplined enforcement body patrolling our air and seaports , remote locations, mail and cargo centres and Australia's extended maritime jurisdiction.

We have significant service and enforcement functions, including:

• facilitating the lawful passage of people and goods;

• investigations, compliance and enforcement in relation to illicit goods and immigration malpractice; and

• onshore detention, removals and offshore processing arrangements.

We consider the border not to be a purely physical barrier separating nation states, but a complex continuum stretching offshore and onshore, including the overseas, maritime, physical border and domestic dimensions of the border - border continuum diagram. To protect the safety, security and commercial interests of Australia, we are working with our partner agencies to develop intelligence-based profiles of risk across each dimension of the border continuum. 

The further development of sophisticated intelligence and targeting capabilities will increasingly allow us to minimise interventions in low-risk border movements and concentrate our resources against those who attempt to breach our borders or circumvent our controls.  

Our Strategic Border Command, through a command centre with oversight of regional commands, ensures the effective coordination of border enforcement and operational activity. It maintains visibility of what is happening at the border and is able to quickly and effectively redirect effort to better manage the border.

Our Maritime Border Command, comprising both Departmental staff and Australian Defence Force members, coordinates collaborative cross-agency civil maritime security activities, including intelligence analysis, coordinated surveillance and on-water responses. This strategy encompasses working ahead of the border with international partners to provide controls for maritime security threats.

Our specialist investigation and enforcement capability is deployed against individuals, organisations or networks that seek to harm the Australian community or economy through threats, crime and abuse of border law and systems. We are focused on:

• national security threats

• serious or complex border crime across the border continuum, from one-off attempts to complex organised and serious crime

• systemic vulnerabilities in the trade and migration systems

We work with partner agencies as part of Australia’s whole-of-government strategies and international commitments particularly in the areas of national security and organised crime. 

We are actively engaged in a number of international data-accessing initiatives aimed at preventing the movement of terrorists or terrorist groups.

The Australian Border Force also plays an important role in the community by enforcing and maintaining the integrity of Australia's visa programme using a range of preventative and compliance measures. 

We provide services to support people in community detention arrangements, onshore immigration detention facilities and regional processing centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

In protecting the border, the Australian Border Force engages regularly with a number of partner agencies including:

• Attorney-General’s Department

• Australian Antarctic Division

• Australian Communications and Media Authority

• Australian Crime Commission

• Australian Federal Police

• Australian Fisheries Management Authority

• Australian Maritime Safety Authority

• Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

• Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre

• Department of Agriculture

• Department of Defence

• Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

• Department of Industry and Science

• Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development

• Department of Infrastructure and Transport, Office of Transport Security

• Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

• Department of Environment, and

• Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Task 2