Parliamentary inquiry into au pair saga starts

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan was at the centre of a bitter back-and-forth this afternoon as he revealed the full extent of his role in the au pair controversy.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan is currently appearing before the inquiry into the Peter Dutton au pair controversy.

The Senate’s legal affairs committee is examining whether Mr Dutton misused his powers when he intervened in two visa cases.

One of those cases concerned a woman called Alexandra Deuwel, who was detained at Adelaide airport in October 2015 after admitting she intended to work, in breach of her tourist visa, for grazier Callum MacLachlan.

Leaked documents show Mr MacLachlan contacted Gillon McLachlan, who directed the AFL’s head of government relations and former Liberal staffer Jude Donnelly to forward an email from his cousin to Mr Dutton’s chief-of-staff.

Under questioning from Labor senator Murray Watt, Mr McLachlan said his relationship with Mr Dutton was “a normal relationship that I would have with a minister on either side of politics”.

“He was, for a reasonably brief period of time, the sports minister. I think I’ve probably met Mr Dutton half a dozen times,” the AFL boss said.

Mr McLachlan described his actions in the au pair case.

“I got a call from my second cousin, Callum MacLachlan, who was agitated and said to me that he’d been trying to get hold of the relevant office, because it was Sunday, he couldn’t get hold of anyone.

“He felt there had been a mistake on a visa issue,” Mr McLachlan said. “Did I have any way of helping?

“My response was that I thought I had a work colleague and a friend who could help him get in contact.”

Mr McLachlan then got in touch with Ms Donnelly.

“I explained what had been put to me by my cousin, and said his view was that she had become a friend of the family, and that she wasn’t going there to work, she was going to see the family.”

Ms Donnelly said she then contacted Mr Dutton’s chief of staff and sent him the email forwarded to her from Craig MacLachlan.

“At some stage he emailed me back saying the department was looking at it and they would come back to me.”

“I had no contact with the minister or his office about this issue,” Mr McLachlan concluded.

The pair told the committee they had only contacted the government about a personal immigration matter once before, when Scott Morrison was immigration minister, to try to ascertain the status of someone’s application.

On that occasion, Ms Donnelly contacted a staffer in then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office.

“I was contacted by someone who was waiting on a business visa, a friend of a friend, who was wanting to come into the country, who had language issues. I asked Ms Donnelly whether the visa had been approved or not, asked her to find out the status of the application,” Mr McLachlan said.

“I asked, could you let me know the status of where it’s at. Sometime later I heard back it had already been processed,” Ms Donnelly said.

As the pair’s testimony wrapped up, Liberal senator Eric Abetz apologised to them for what he called “this absolute waste of time”.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan will appear via teleconference to explain his involvement.

Earlier today, the committee interrogated representatives of the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Border Force, including Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo and Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram.

Mr Watt and LNP senator Barry O’Sullivan added some spice to the event this morning through incessant cantankerousness.

Mr Watt was annoyed because he felt the Department of Home Affairs was being uncooperative, and Mr O’Sullivan was irritated with Mr Watt’s line of questioning.

Here are the main points from that session.

• WATT’S THE GO WITH THE AU PAIRS?

Mr Watt started by venting his frustration about previous encounters with Mr Pezzullo. He implied the department had not been forthcoming enough.

“There’s really only one question today isn’t there. What’s the go with the au pairs?” Mr Watt began.

“We have never been able to get answers to these questions in other sessions of estimates that we’ve gone through.

“I would like to think that today might be a little bit different.”

As Mr O’Sullivan groaned and tried to interject - this was to become a recurring theme of the morning - Mr Watt remained undeterred.

“It’s a pretty important step to see whether the department is going to be more transparent,” he shot back.

“We always answer questions to the best of our ability and forthrightly,” Mr Pezzullo said.

Mr Watt’s mood was presumably not improved by the fact that the officials had shown up without bringing the case files in question.

The Labor senator attempted to drill down on the number of interventions Mr Dutton had actually made during his time as the relevant minister.

According to him, while Mr Dutton had intervened 4129 times in total, just 25 of those cases applied to people with tourist visas.

Mr Watt eventually blew up at Mr Pezzullo, accusing the Home Affairs secretary of trying to prevent the other witnesses from answering his questions.

“Mr Pezzullo, come on!” he exclaimed.

“Let him finish!” Mr O’Sullivan shot back.

Labor Senator Murray Watt. Pic: Supplied

• ‘NO ONE CHECKED’

Liberal senator Eric Abetz asked whether either of the two au pairs in question had broken the conditions of their visas.

“Not to my knowledge,” replied Malisa Golightly, Deputy Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship Services.

Mr Watt jumped back in to ask whether the department had conducted any checks on the two women to ensure they were actually complying with their visas.

“In visas as short as this we wouldn’t usually do compliance work,” Ms Golightly said.

“So when you say that to your knowledge people complied, that’s because no one ever really checked,” Mr Watt responded.

He pressed Mr Pezzullo on that point, asking why there was no compliance work for at least one of the au pairs, who was “at high-risk of breaching their visa because of their past actions in doing exactly the same thing”.

Mr Pezzullo said the department needed to prioritise, and was more likely to focus its efforts on monitoring violent criminals.

• BARRY LOSES PATIENCE

Mr Watt went on to grill Mr Pezzullo about the speed with which Mr Dutton intervened in both au pair cases - he had acted within hours, and Mr Watt wanted to know how many other applicants had got “that level of service”.

At that point, Mr O’Sullivan blew up in frustration at the committee’s chairwoman, Labor senator Louise Pratt, complaining that he hadn’t been given the chance to ask any questions.

“You’re not chairing this correctly,” he said.

“Senator O’Sullivan, will you please withdraw your reflection on the chair, otherwise I will not give you the call,” Ms Pratt responded.

Mr O’Sullivan did eventually withdraw his comment, and went back to sighing loudly and muttering under his breath.

When he did get to ask questions, he asked Mr Pezzullo whether the leaking of emails from within government departments posed a threat to national security.

“I would find that behaviour unacceptable and probably in breach of criminal law,” Mr Pezzullo replied.

• AFP BROUGHT IN

One of the few new things we learned from the morning session was that the leaking of inter-departmental emails has been referred to the Australian Federal Police.

Mr Watt was not impressed by this revelation, and pointed out that the minister in charge of the AFP is none other than Peter Dutton.

• ‘THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN’

When the department’s grilling was over, the panel spoke to Eve Watts, a senior migration consultant, Helen Duncan, a registered migration agent, and Sarah Dale, a solicitor.

Mr Watt asked whether any of the women had ever heard of an application for ministerial intervention being accepted within hours.

“No,” all three said.

The witnesses said they had no experience of obtaining intervention with a phone call, as allegedly happened in the au pair cases, and would usually go through a much longer process.

The Dutton #aupair inquiry has just heard from 3 experienced migration agents. None of them have ever obtained Ministerial intervention, to obtain a visa, over the phone, within hours, without substantial documentary evidence. It’s not what you know...

— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) September 5, 2018

HOW THE AU PAIR SCANDAL UNFOLDED

2015 June 17 — Italian au pair of a former police colleague of Dutton’s arrives in Brisbane where her visa is cancelled. She makes a phone call and a tourist visa is granted after ministerial intervention.

November 1 — A French au pair arrives in Adelaide and is granted a visitor visa after AFL boss Gillon McLachlan lobbies Dutton. The au pair worked for McLachlan’s cousin.

Italian au pair Michela Marchisio in front of Brisbane's Story Bridge.

2016 June — Immigration Department decides under a freedom of information request to exempt two documents in full regarding the au pair visa decisions. September — The department makes a revised decision and offers partial access to documents but blacks out the rest of the information based on privacy provisions.

2017 May — The Office of Information Commissioner forces the department to release further documents, but exempts some information for privacy reasons. 2018 March 26 — Dutton confirms he used his ministerial discretion to grant visas to two young tourists after AAP breaks the story.

March 27 — Dutton says “the answer is yes” when asked in question time to rule out any personal connection or relationship between himself and the intended employer of the Italian au pair.

April 3 — A federal tribunal rules key details surrounding Dutton’s decision to grant the nannies visas must be suppressed.

August 23 — The Senate refers the matter to a parliamentary inquiry. August 28 — It emerges Dutton intervened in the second case following lobbying from Gillon McLachlan on behalf of his second cousin Callum MacLachlan whose father Hugh donated roughly $150,000 to the Liberal Party since 1999. August 30 — Dutton says he saved the nanny because he thought it was a “bit rough” for a young woman with no criminal history to get kicked out of the country.

Sept 2 — Dutton suggests the re-emergence of the issue is political payback for his failed tilt at the Liberal leadership.

Sept 3 — Dutton says he has list of “quirky” immigration requests from Labor MPs. Points to a disaffected member of the Australian Border Force as the source of the stories. Greens MP Adam Bandt says he’ll move a no-confidence motion in Dutton when parliament returns next week, a move the minister describes as desperate.

Sept 5 — A parliamentary inquiry into the issue is due to start hearings in Canberra.

- with AAP