From comradeship via conflict to commentary

Long before Peter Dutton picked Roman Quaedvlieg to command the new Australian Border Force, the two were comrades.

Peter Dutton and Roman Quaedvlieg arrive in 2015. Picture: AAP

Long before Peter Dutton picked Roman Quaedvlieg to command the new Australian Border Force, the two were comrades in the Queensland Police Service throughout the 1990s.

While the current Home Affairs Minister was chasing drug dealers and sex offenders as a detective in Brisbane, his future border enforcer worked undercover and investigated major crimes, ­including collaring the “postcard bandit” bank robber Brenden James Abbott in 1995.

Although Mr Dutton left policing in 1999 to work for his family’s childcare business and pursue a political career, Mr Quaedvlieg went on to become one of Australia’s most esteemed police officers as director of the Australian Crime Commission, Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner and ACT Policing chief.

In May 2013, with Tony ­Abbott’s ascendant Coalition poised to shake up border enforcement, Mr Quaedvlieg accepted the role of deputy chief executive of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

Mr Dutton, who succeeded Scott Morrison as immigration minister, appointed Mr Quaed­vlieg as Border Force commissioner in 2015. Together they weathered scandals such as “Operation Fortitude”, an announcement in August 2015 that Border Force’s officers in Melbourne’s CBD would be confronting “any individual we cross paths with” in a bid to catch illegal immigrants.

Mr Quaedvlieg’s relationship with Mike Pezzullo, the secretary of Mr Dutton’s Home Affairs Department, became increasingly torrid. He was sacked from the $620,000 position in March after a review into alleged misconduct with a female staffer found that his actions “went beyond an isolated error of judgment” and undermined his ability to do the job.