Au pair granted visa by Peter Dutton found in southern France
SCOTT Morrison has backed Peter Dutton over his use of ministerial discretion in the au pair visa row, as Gillon McLachlan defended his role after the French nanny was found. SEE THE EXCLUSIVE IMAGES.
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EXCLUSIVE: Scott Morrison has backed Peter Dutton over his use of ministerial discretion in the au pair visa row, as Gillon McLachlan defended his role after the French nanny was found.
Alexandra Deuwel, who is now a yoga teacher in the south of France, was approached by News Corp as she left a gymnasium after teaching a class in the village of Sollies-Pont, near the city of Toulon. She would not comment.
It comes as Mr McLachlan defended his role in the situation, claiming he was just trying to faciliate a contact for his cousin, Callum MacLachlan, whom the au pair was returning to Australia to visit after having worked for him in the past.
Mr McLachlan also said he didn’t know Mr Dutton “that well” after 3AW Melbourne interviewer Neil Mitchell said the situation looked like “mates helping mates”.
MORE: The secret emails in au pair case
“I can see that’s the way it’s playing out because of the political context but at the time, it was a Sunday and he (Callum MacLachlan) asked for my help to get onto people and I did what I thought was appropriate to help,” Mr McLachlan said.
“I didn’t interfere, I just forwarded an email.
“I don’t think there was special treatment, that’s a question for someone else. But no, I don’t think so. I think it was considered on its merits.
“I get asked to help people all the time and I was asked to help facilitate a contact and that’s what I did.
“This was just someone wanting to have an issue heard and all I was doing was trying to facilitate contact, not make a representation.”
When asked how well he knew Mr Dutton, Mr McLachlan said “not that well”.
“I would say I know (Mr Dutton) as a minister in a government in which we deal with, like I deal with many governments all the time,” he added.
Mr McLachlan also said he had never met the au pair involved.
When approached by News Corp in France, Ms Deuwel refused to answer questions and asked to be left alone before throwing her yoga gear in the boot of her car and driving off.
She had taken an evening class at the Magic Form gymnasium and fitness centre in a commercial centre in Sollies-Pont, off a main road and sharing a driveway with a McDonald’s outlet.
MORRISON BACKS DUTTON’S AU PAIR CALL
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed in his Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton over his use of ministerial discretion in the growing au pair visa row.
Speaking at a school on the outskirts of Indonesia on his first trip overseas as Prime Minister Mr Morrison said he had made “hundreds, if not thousands” of such decisions himself as Immigration Minister but “they are made on each case by their merits”.
“I made plenty of them myself, they are difficult decisions, personal decisions, human decisions – the facts are many and the considerations are large... every single one of those is a life and every decision you make on that affects those lives those lives of the people around them.”
Mr Dutton has been under fire from Labor since it was revealed earlier this week that he had granted a visa to a French au pair who was working for a relative of AFL boss Gillon McLachlan after an intervention from AFL executive Jude Donnelly.
Mr Dutton has also copped heat for his decision to intervene on behalf of an Italian au pair who was working for a former colleague from his days in the Queensland Police.
The Prime Minister said he had complete confidence in his minister.
“You don’t make those decisions in a rush… you make in carefully and in a considered way, so I have no doubt that every time Pete exercised that decision-making authority, in the same way (Immigration Minister) David Coleman is making them now, they would be following exactly that process,” he said.
Asked about whether he agreed that Mr Dutton was being leaked against the PM described the row as “the usual Canberra circus” and that he had no concerns over Mr Dutton’s decision making.
“Canberra loves it when dust gets kicked up and people sling some mud about – there’s nothing new about that but I don’t see those sort of activities and those sort of machinations as grounds for anything,” he said.
DUTTON FORCED TO DEFEND HIMSELF
This morning Mr Dutton also furiously defended himself in an interview with Alan Jones on 2GB, arguing ministers have the power to intervene against the department’s recommendations.
“Common sense should prevail,” Mr Dutton said. “Why should that person be detained and deported on the next flight out; it was just a common sense approach to it.
“That is what I’m elected to do. I’m not here to do anything else other than what I believe is in the country’s best interest.
“If you look at other individual cases, a sick child or a mother who has been a victim of a domestic violence situation, each of those cases the department has advised against a visa being issued, and I intervene in those cases.
“That’s the idea of ministerial intervention powers. The department makes a decision and a minister can overrule.”
MORE: Read the emails here
AU PAIR’S LINK TO AUSTRALIA
The French national, now aged about 30, was controversially released from immigration detention in 2015 after Mr Dutton intervened at the request of AFL boss Gillon McLachlan.
Ms Deuwel was flying back into Australia when she was detained at Adelaide Airport by border force officials who declined to grant her a tourist’s visa because they believed she was returning to resume a job she had previously held working for Skye and Callum MacLachlan.
The MacLachlans are relatives of Gillon McLachlan, and Ms Deuwel had worked as a live-in babysitter for them on their farm in South Australia’s Barossa Valley.
Freedom of Information documents have revealed Mr Dutton used his ministerial discretion to save Ms Deuwel from deportation, overruling border officials who believed she was intending to work, despite entering Australia on a tourist visa.
His intervention came after he was approached by Mr McLachlan to assist.
Mr Dutton has defended the decision, saying he acted appropriately and received hundreds of similar requests a year.
Ms Deuwel is the third au pair Mr Dutton has granted a visa to, with the situation to be examined by a Senate committee inquiry which starts next week and is due to report in September when federal parliament resumes.
He said donations made by the MacLachlans to the Liberal Party in South Australia had not influenced his decision in any way.
Ms Deuwel, who appears to have gone back to France in about 2016, now teaches yoga in areas including Hyeres, Sollies-Pont and La Crau, teaching adults and children, and leading sunrise yoga retreats on Hyeres beach, facing the Mediterranean.
The villages are in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in southeastern France, but off the major tourist routes.