It has dominated the media for the past 18 hours, it’s 248 pages long, and you can find it here. But this is all you need to read to understand the Palmer Report – Finding Number 10 on page 14:

During Ms Rau’s detention the DIMIA management approach to
the complexities of implementing immigration detention policy appeared
to be “process rich” and “outcomes poor,” with the predominant, and
often sole, emphasis being on the achievement of quantitative
yardsticks rather than qualitative performance. The organisational
structure and arrangements fail to deliver the outcomes required by the
government in a way that is firm and fair and respects human dignity.

The two sentences say everything that needs to be said about immigration policy and the implementation of mandatory detention.

And
just five words have much, much wider implications: “‘Process rich’ and
‘outcomes poor’.” You could say exactly the same about most public
policy administration under the Howard Government – despite all the
Liberal mantras about red tape.