I didn’t ‘deviate from normal practice’ on au pairs: Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton has declared his interventions in two foreign au pair visa cases “don’t deviate from normal practice”

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: Kym Smith

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has declared his interventions in two foreign au pair visa cases “don’t deviate from normal practice”, as the department hands over more than 100 pages of documents related to the controversy.

The Labor-led Senate committee looking into “allegations concerning the inappropriate exercise of ministerial powers, with respect to the visa status of au pairs” is due to hand down its report today following a four-week inquiry and one public hearing.

The Department of Home Affairs has found no evidence Mr Dutton intervened in a third au pair visa case as alleged by sacked Australian Border Force commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg.

Mr Dutton predicted Labor and the Greens would use the report to say he is a “bad person” but insisted evidence would not back that up.

“Obviously they thought they had a star witness who proved to be discredited,” Mr Dutton said in a reference to Mr Quaedvlieg.

“There is no third case, as referred to by one of the witnesses. The witness didn’t come forward to be cross-examined. This is nothing more than a witch-hunt. It was always the case and 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.”

The inquiry has looked extensively at Mr Dutton’s intervention in Italian woman Michela Marchisio’s case, which was brought to the Minister’s attention by one of his former Queensland police colleagues Russell Keag.

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

The Minister intervened to overrule the department’s decision to cancel their tourist visas, allowing them to holiday in Australia on condition they did not work.

The fresh evidence from the department received today shows the Minister’s office sought “urgent” information on the Brisbane case, which was resolved within three hours, and that the Italian au pair involved had expressed interest in earning “extra money for fun” in exchange for her babysitting services while in Australia.

“This is urgent. The minister requires this submission tonight (preferably in the next hour as he has an appointment at 7.30pm),” the email from Mr Dutton’s departmental liaison officer said.

In the Adelaide case, documents show the French au pair was offered some horse work at a polo event and “au pair type work” on various dates in November 2015.

After her visa was cancelled, the French au pair had to be “offloaded” from her “removal flight” as the ministerial intervention progressed.

Mr Dutton said there was “no cost to the Commonwealth” due to Ms Deuwel’s removal from the plane.

“The two instances you talk about don’t deviate from normal practice, not of me as immigration minister, not of Chris Bowen as immigration minister, and a long line before that,” Mr Dutton said.

“Have a look at the thousands of cases that an immigration minister deals with on a yearly basis. Across administrations contact is made through members of parliament. Cases are presented to my office on the phone, people ringing up my office every day, sending emails in to my MP address. The queries come in through a number of ways.”

Mr Dutton said he looked at matters “on their merit” and often intervened in cases “very quickly”.

Dutton v Quaedvlieg war

The inquiry helped spark an extraordinary public row between Mr Dutton and Mr Quaedvlieg, with the Minister using parliamentary privilege to accuse his former ally — who he appointed as the nation’s first ABF commissioner — of “grooming” a much younger woman.

Mr Dutton also said Mr Quaedvlieg had made “entirely false and indeed fabricated” allegations because of his “bitterness” over losing his job in March for misbehaviour.

In a letter to the committee’s chair, Labor senator Louise Pratt, Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo clarified Mr Dutton had intervened to grant a visitor visa in 21 cases involving 31 people, not 18 cases involving 24 people as previously advised.

“I should like to inform the committee that, in the time available, having undertaken extensive searches of case files and manually reviewing departmental systems, the department has not found any evidence of another case between October 2015 and the end of 2016 involving a young female from a Western or Southern European country who had been detained at Brisbane airport due to evidence of an intention to work as an au pair,” Mr Pezzullo said.

Mr Quaedvlieg originally claimed Mr Dutton’s chief of staff Craig Maclachlan called him in June 2015 seeking help for “the boss’s mate in Brisbane” regarding Ms Marchisio’s case.

Mr Dutton said it was “impossible” for that conversation to have occurred because Mr Maclachlan was not employed by him until four months later.

Mr Quaedvlieg then changed his evidence to allege he had a conversation with Mr Maclachlan “between October 2015 and the end of calendar year 2016” about a similar, third au pair visa case.

“The information I was provided was that a young European female travelling on a tourist visa had been detained at Brisbane International Airport. I do not recall her exact nationality however I am reasonably confident she was from a Western or Southern European country,” Mr Quaedvlieg said in evidence to the committee.

“As a result of the remarkably coincidental circumstances, and without access to records, I had made the apparently erroneous assumption that the conversation I have just recounted was in fact related to the ‘Brisbane case’ currently under scrutiny of the inquiry, however it now appears that the records of the department and the ABF, and officers involved in the described chain of inquiry, need to be examined to correlate it to a different Brisbane visa case.”

Mr Pezzullo’s latest evidence directly disputed Mr Quaedvlieg’s claim.

New Quaedvlieg evidence

In a third letter to the committee published today, Mr Quaedvlieg warned he had “not yet provided” his “full” evidence and would do so once the department had completed a “comprehensive discovery process”.

Mr Quaedvlieg said that process should not only include ministerial intervention briefs relevant to the inquiry but data mentioned in his previous evidence, including records of detention of persons; records of access to the detainee’s electronic devices; and contemporaneous notes made by detaining officers.

“It is a blight on the parliament and it erodes the integrity of the Senate committee’s deliberations that I can be so publicly, gratuitously and unashamedly attacked in the manner in which I have described, particularly by an active member of the committee (Liberal senator Eric Abetz), before the full evidence has even been adduced,” Mr Quaedvlieg said.

“I contend that once the full committee has assured itself that the discovery processes have been exhausted then it would serve the committee’s inquiry to invite the Minister for Home Affairs, his chief of staff, and me to provide oral evidence and be cross-examined. This would ensure a level playing field and an opportunity for the Committee to assess and compare the veracity of the witness evidence in this matter.”

Senator Abetz has said Mr Quaedvlieg’s evidence was “completely discredited” by the department.