Labor keen for second hearing into Dutton’s au pair controversy

Labor is considering holding ­another hearing into the au pair controversy surrounding Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

Labor senator Murray Watt at the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee meeting. Picture: Kym Smith.

Labor is considering holding ­another hearing into the au pair controversy surrounding Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton following revelations AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan intervened in a second visa case on behalf of an Argentinian polo player.

Mr McLachlan was asked to appear at today’s Labor-led Senate committee after he helped connect his second cousin Callum MacLachlan with Mr Dutton’s ­office in late 2015 to stop French woman Alexandra Deuwel, who had worked for Mr MacLachlan as an au pair, from being deported.

Gillon McLachlan also confirmed today he asked a colleague to make inquiries in March 2014 to then immigration minister Scott Morrison about the visa ­status of a “friend of a friend” with limited English who had sought to come to Australia to play polo.

It emerged after the hearing that Callum MacLachlan was a member of the Australian Polo Federation’s international committee. Neither Callum Mac­Lachlan nor Gillon McLachlan responded when asked whether the former was involved in the polo player’s visa case.

Labor senator Murray Watt said it would “be concerning” if Gillon McLachlan had acted for his second cousin in the polo player’s case.

“The whole issue is the speed with which people in high places can get decisions made going around the usual processes,” he said. “(The Senate committee) is due to report on Tuesday but, given this new development about the polo player, it’s starting to look like there’s a pattern of behaviour from ministers in this government … and we’ll be considering where we take the inquiry.”

Liberal senator Eric Abetz said the inquiry was a “total non-event” and that the Department of Home ­Affairs had confirmed in both au pair cases that it had recommended Mr Dutton intervene.

A submission to Mr Dutton by the then department of immigration and border protection in November 2015 gave him the option of intervening in Ms Deuwel’s case and of imposing a condition on her visa that she not work while here — both of which he did.

“Labor senators have now spent weeks telling everyone who cares to listen that today’s hearing would be a showstopper but the ­reality is that it’s been a total non-event, with officials simply confirming that all actions were appropriate,” Senator Abetz said.

AFL head of government relations Jude Donnelly, a former Liberal staffer, said she approached someone in then prime minister Tony Abbott’s ­office about the polo player’s visa status and heard “within a couple of days” that it had already been processed.

Asked on the au pair case why he thought his second cousin had asked for assistance, Gillon McLachlan said: “I can’t speak for him, but he told me that he had been trying to get hold of the office — it was a Sunday — and couldn’t get through. I imagine that he had an instinct that I would potentially have some contact that could help him get in touch with the office.”

The Department of Home ­Affairs has referred leaked emails about the French au pair case to the police amid speculation from the government that Labor was ­responsible. “It’s now a matter for the federal police to establish — if this is what’s occurred — both the exfiltration of the information from our network (and) to whom it was exfiltrated,” department secretary Michael Pezzullo said.