Labor urges Senate ‘censure’ of Dutton over au pair visas

A Labor-led committee has urged the Senate to consider ‘censuring’ Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: Kym Smith

A Labor-led committee has urged the Senate to consider “censuring” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton after it found he “failed to observe fairness” when choosing to intervene in two foreign au pair visa cases and “misled parliament” over the controversy.

But the au pair inquiry was labelled “a farcical and shambolic witch-hunt” by Coalition senators, who delivered a dissenting report and recommended Mr Dutton be commended for his “prudent, diligent” work.

Liberal senator Ian Macdonald said Mr Dutton would not be resigning or be sacked by Scott Morrison in the wake of the report being handed down last night.

The inquiry, set up by Labor and the Greens, looked extensively at Mr Dutton’s intervention in the case of Italian woman Michela Marchisio. The case was brought to his attention by one of his former Queensland police colleagues, Russell Keag, and was resolved within three hours.

It also scrutinised the case of French woman Alexandra Deu­wel, who was granted a tourist visa after AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan asked a staff member to contact Mr Dutton’s office.

Ms Marchisio’s matter has become known as the “Brisbane case” while Ms Deuwel’s is referred to as the “Adelaide case” because both were detained at the respective cities’ airports and had their tourist visas cancelled because of concerns that they intended to work as au pairs while in Australia.

Handing down their report yesterday, Labor and Greens senators did not suggest Mr Dutton had acted illegally when he intervened to allow the au pairs entry into Australia on condition they did not work. However, they alleged that he had made a “purposeful misleading of parliament” by denying he had any personal connection with Mr Keag and Mr McLachlan’s second cousin, who hosted the Italian and French women respectively.

Responding to the report, Greens MP Adam Bandt said he would move a no-confidence motion against Mr Dutton today.

According to the House of Representatives practice, passage of a censure motion in the Senate “would appear to have no substantive effect” but it can, depending on circumstances, be seen as “contributing to the parliamentary and other pressures leading to a minister’s resignation or dismissal”.

Mr Dutton said his interventions in the au pair cases “don’t ­deviate from normal practice”, he looked at matters “on their merit” and often made decisions “very quickly”.

“This is nothing more than a witch-hunt; it was always the case. If they can point to something to the contrary, let them do that, but I suspect they can’t because they haven’t provided the evidence and that was clear in the inquiry.”

Labor and the Greens said “inconsistencies” presented in the Department of Home Affairs’ ­evidence left “significant doubt” as to whether all relevant ministerial interventions had been captured.

The department updated its evidence to clarify that Mr Dutton had intervened to grant a visitor visa in 21 cases involving 31 people, not 18 cases involving 24 people as previously advised.

Department secretary Michael Pezzullo said some dates of visa grants had been incorrectly transcribed, were wrong or not captured in departmental ­reporting and had been subsequently identified by a manual search. The department was still trying to locate a submission for one visa grant.

In their dissenting report, ­Coalition senators said the evidence had disclosed no instances of inappropriate conduct by Mr Dutton.