No confidence motion to be moved against Peter Dutton

HOME Affairs Minister Peter Dutton will next week face a vote of no confidence over accusations he misled parliament in the foreign nanny saga.

HOME Affairs Minister Peter Dutton will next week face a vote of no confidence over accusations he misled parliament in the foreign nanny saga.

Labor and the Greens will team up to move the motion, as they seek to take advantage of the Coalition Government while it is a number down in parliament with Malcolm Turnbull’s seat vacant.

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Mr Dutton is under increasing pressure to explain why he assured parliament in March this year he had no relationship with any of the employers of the au pairs he saved from deportation.

It has since emerged one of the au pairs, Italian nanny Michela Marchisio, was planning to work for Mr Dutton’s former colleague in the Queensland Police.

Peter Dutton is facing a vote of no confidence over the foreign au pair saga. Picture: AP

Mr Dutton also overruled his own department when he allowed in another au pair from France who was working for the cousin of AFL boss Gillon McLachlan.

Greens MP Adam Bandt said he would move a motion of no confidence in the Home Affairs Minister next week.

“Peter Dutton has failed to explain why he misled Parliament and now he must go,” Mr Bandt said.

Opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said Mr Dutton had been given the opportunity explain himself and it appeared he mislead parliament.

“For these reasons Labor will be supporting this motion — if the Greens political party hadn’t sought to move this motion, Labor would have moved it,” Mr Neumann said.

It is rare for a motion of no confidence to be moved against a minister, as it is usually used against the government or prime minister.

In response to a question in parliament asking whether he could “categorically rule out any personal connection or any other relationship” with employers of the au pairs, Mr Dutton said “yes”.

The minister yesterday confirmed one of the people he helped was a former police colleague, but he stood behind his statements to parliament “100 per cent”.

“Mr Dutton is confident, to the best of his knowledge, he has never met Callum Maclachlan (Gillon’s second-cousin) nor has he socialised, met with or had contact with Russell Keag in almost 20 years,” a spokeswoman for Mr Dutton said.

All six crossbenchers would need to support the motion to pass.

Independent Cathy McGowan has already said she would not be supporting any more votes of no confidence against the government until Mr Turnbull was replaced in his seat of Wentworth.

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