Since 2018 the Commonwealth Ombudsman has been Australia's National Preventive Mechanism for Commonwealth places of detention under a United Nations anti-torture treaty. That covers immigration detention, military detention and some Australian Federal Police facilities.
The funding for that role and a related coordinating role, the Office told the Senate, is "approximately $300,000 per year … equivalent to 1.8FTE plus travel", on top of about $170,000 a year it already received for its immigration role. In May 2023 the Ombudsman put the total at "funding for approximately 3.8 people" and said more than 10 had been working on the function. In answer to a question asked in March 2025 he said he was "diverting resources from other parts of my Office to perform these functions – which lessens my ability to perform my other functions".
The Office says the same of whistleblower oversight. New powers under the Public Interest Disclosure Act arrived on 1 July 2023 with, in the words of the annual report, no "additional funding to support implementation".
Sources: answers to questions on notice BE23-138, AE24-225 and AE25-203; Annual Report 2023-24 p 47.