The Immigration department released Daniel Love from detention at the end of September when it realised the Indigenous man, who happened to be born in Papua New Guinea, could not be deported because he is dinky di Australian. Love, 39, was born to a PNG mother, has an Aboriginal father and came to Australia as a five-year old.

He was in detention for a month, after a delegate for Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, cancelled his permanent residency visa.

There was a time when such a blunder would have been front page news, attracting media coverage for months and prompting a government inquiry into the operations of the department.

Back in 2005, immigration was heavily criticised and ended up paying a heavy price in compensation after similar mistakes.

Former federal police commissioner, Mick Palmer, who was appointed to investigate the wrongful detention of two women Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon, concluded that there was “a serious cultural problem” within the department's compliance and detention areas. Urgent reform was necessary, he said.

Cornelia Rau was a German citizen with permanent residency in Australia who was wrongfully detained for 10 months and ultimately received an apology from the then prime minister John Howard and compensation of $2.6 million.

The case of Vivian Solon was even worse. She was an Australian citizen who was wrongfully deported to the Philippines in 2003. Senior Immigration Department officials were made aware of the wrongful deportation but failed to act. Solon is believed to have been awarded compensation of $4.5 million.

Following these blunders it was widely recognised that a concerted program had to be implemented to change the culture within the department. Commissioner Palmer had observed that the department operated with no genuine quality assurance, or constraints on the exercise of its powers.

All departments have policy tensions. The Immigration Department strains between those responsible for attracting immigrants and promoting the economic boost and those who police our borders and deport unwelcome visitors.

Depending on the government of the day, employees can see themselves as welcoming, humane migration officers, or as xenophobic guards protecting us from the foreign hoards.

In his report commissioner Palmer concluded that serious problems in handling immigration detention cases stemmed from deep-seated cultural and attitudinal problems.

This culture did not come out of the ether. The department of the day had simply picked up on the Howard government’s campaign messages over successive elections – the recognition that race could be exploited to win votes; the fear of terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Bali bombings of 2002; the Iraq war of 2003; and the general concern in the community about immigrants competing for jobs or placing strains on infrastructure.

In such an atmosphere it’s easy to be harsh or cavalier in the treatment of people who are subject to your authority.

Harsh treatment is evident in the latest available Home Affairs annual report which reveals a 46 per cent jump in the number of “non-citizens” removed from Australia, up from 4754 in 2015-16 to 6948 in 2016-17.

In his report Palmer took the opportunity to remind staff that “protection of individual liberty is at the heart of Australian democracy.”

He said the immigration detention policy had to be applied justly and equitably and there was an overall duty of care owed to detainees.

The negative publicity prompted the government to shake-up the department and a new secretary, Andrew Metcalfe, was appointed with a brief that included making sure that actions such as those that had impacted on Rau and Solon would not happen again.

In 2006 Metcalfe told me his department was trying to be “as open as we can.”

“We’ve got to be outward looking. We’ve got to engage with our critics, with commentators, with people who have an interest in what we do.”

But the pendulum swings. Today the department is far from open and does not engage with critics. Its Australian Border Force is in reality a paramilitary organisation.

Secrecy, paranoia, suspicion and hostility are the hallmarks of the organisation.

From the moment Scott Morrison took over as immigration minister in 2013, media blackouts and obfuscation became the order of the day. Information on boat arrivals was severely limited and even the nationality of arrivals was kept secret.

In the early days of the Abbott government the restriction drew widespread criticism.

But the government has weathered the storm and has not paid a political price.

Sadly the individual lack of liberty of others does not seem to bother much of the electorate and few voters care about media access, which is extremely limited in the Home Affairs/Immigration area.

Around Australia people are held behind closed doors with next to no rights and with no public awareness.

We may have found out about Daniel Love’s wrongful incarceration, but how many others are there? And what chance do they have to make their case for freedom?

Picture this. You are a young man who came to Australia as a child refugee and committed a crime one week after you turned 18. It was your first and only offence. You got sentenced to 13 months in youth detention. You did your time and for the next two years worked and stayed out of trouble with the police.

At 8am, as you’re about to go to work, there’s a knock on your door and four border force officers and three police are there to greet you. They tell you your visa has been cancelled and you are to be deported to a country where you know no one.

But that’s not the worst of it. What happens next is the where the pretence that Australia is a fair and just society falls away.

You’re told that the decision has been made by Minister Dutton alone and you have the right to appeal. Simple. All you have to do, while sitting alone in detention with no lawyer, is prepare an appeal stating where the minister has erred in law in making his decision. (It helps if you know what terms like “mandamus” mean as you will be dealing with legal documents.)

And once you’ve filled in the forms, all you have to do is get one of the guards to lodge it properly with the appropriate court.

In one case I know, the document that had to be faxed had an attachment – the minister’s decision – that was double sided but the guards only faxed one side, making the application incomplete.

Ordinary detainees are harassed by Immigration officials who read from a document, telling detainees that there’s no need to read it for themselves – just sign here and we’ll give you $10,000 to help you set up in a country you barely know.

Commissioner Palmer made the point that Australia’s immigration polices had to be applied justly and fairly. How is this fair?

If only the detainee I know knew someone who was an old friend of the minister. Or if only the detainee was a European au pair.

In such cases the minister will act in a day to free the detainee, even acting against the advice of his department.

Others languish in detention for months, some even years.

Are those in the department proud of what they do?

It’s time for another Palmer Commission.

It’s time for staff in Home Affairs/Immigration to be reminded that the protection of individual liberty is at the heart of Australian democracy.

Paul Malone is a former political correspondent and former public service correspondent for The Canberra Times.