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Immigration head resigns amid scandal

The head of Australia's embattled immigration department Bill Farmer resigned yesterday, telling Prime Minister John Howard that a new person was needed to drive change within an organization censured in a recent report for breaching its own rules on the detention of suspected illegal immigrants.

But despite a welter of criticism over allowing Australians to be wrongfully held in the country's bleak immigration detention centers and one being unlawfully deported to the Philippines, Farmer was named as the new ambassador to Indonesia.

"Bill Farmer has been a very loyal and professional and very effective person in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and he's also led Immigration during a time of unprecedented strain on the resources of the department," Howard said when announcing the new appointment.

The prime minister also announced a new spy chief. Veteran diplomat Paul O'Sullivan, a former ambassador to Bonn and Berlin, takes over as head of the Australian Security Intelligence organization (ASIO) from Dennis Richardson, now the ambassador to the US.
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