McLachlan defends au pair intervention as ‘fair and appropriate’
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan has broken his silence over the Peter Dutton au pair saga.
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan insists his personal intervention in the visa case of a French au pair was fair and appropriate.
In 2015, Mr McLachlan lobbied then-Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to stop the deportation of a young woman after authorities became suspicious she was intending to work in breach of her tourist visa.
Mr McLachlan, who was asked for help by a cousin who wanted to appeal that decision, denied he got special treatment because of his high public profile. “That’s a question for someone else but I don’t think so,” he told 3AW radio on Friday, breaking his silence over the saga.
“I think this has just been treated on its merits, as the minister said.” Mr McLachlan directed an AFL staffer to forward an email from his cousin on to Mr Dutton’s office.
“I feel all I was doing was forwarding on a communication,” he said. “As I said, I get asked to help people, and that’s what I was asked to do here.” Mr Dutton then stepped in, overruling the advice of senior border security officers, and used his discretionary powers to let the young woman stay. Mr McLachlan acknowledges there is a waft of “mates helping mates” surrounding the incident.
“I can see that in the way its playing out because of the political context,” he said.
“I didn’t interfere in any way, I had no contact with people who forwarded on his email. I was facilitating someone who was wanting to ask a question.” Mr McLachlan said he had never met the French au pair at the centre of the controversy.
The AFL boss said he didn’t even know Mr Dutton that well.
“Not that well, I mean, I certainly know him,” Mr McLachlan said. “I would say I know him as a minister in a government which we deal with, like we deal with many governments all the time.” Mr McLachlan says he is not embarrassed by the high-profile incident. “No, I regret that it’s so public and such an issue,” he said. “But I acted to help someone who asked for assistance, I forwarded (the email) on, and I’m accountable to that.” Asked if he would do it again, Mr McLachlan said: “I would always help someone if I thought it was fair and appropriate if they asked for help.” “You’ve got to consider each case on its merits.” - AAP
Au pair saga is ‘payback’
The au pair saga embroiling Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is being leaked against him as “payback” for the role he played in “wrecking” the Liberal Party, according to Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese.
A third case in which Mr Dutton intervened to allow an au pair entry into Australia emerged yesterday after a request was lodged in June 2015 by one of his former Queensland Police colleagues, Russell Keag.
Mr Dutton said he had not spoken to Mr Keag in 20 years and did not discuss the au pair matter with him after it was raised with his office.
Asked who was leaking against him on 2GB radio, Mr Dutton responded: “It’s a good question. I suspect all will be revealed at some stage.
“There are Labor members of parliament, Liberal members of parliament that come to me every day, including members from the media, I might say, who have anomalies or a situation that they think is unjust. I look at the merit of each of those cases and I act in what I think is a common sense way and I apply that common sense, look at the merit of the case and decide an outcome.”
Leader of the House Christopher Pyne labelled the saga a “classic storm in a tea cup” and said the term “au pair” fixated the media because it sounded “exotic” but there was “nothing to see here”.
“A lot of people who stay in detention are the people who need to be removed from the country,” Mr Pyne told Nine’s Today Show.
“If he thinks if he lets them free they will run off, then he doesn’t let them out. If they have a good case for being unlikely to abscond then he lets them go free. I think that’s the right thing to do.”
Mr Albanese refused to say what Mr Dutton had done was wrong but urged the Minister to be “transparent about what his actions were and why he acted” as a Senate inquiry initiated by Labor looks into the cases.
“Quite clearly there is leaking going on against Peter Dutton as payback for his role in wrecking the Liberal Party last week … People will just contrast his actions here with his lack of compassion he has shown at various times about kids, for example, in detention,” Mr Albanese said.
“From time to time ministers do intervene. I don’t know the circumstances. There is an inquiry, we’ll await what comes out of that inquiry.”
Mr Dutton again defended intervening in the case of a French au pair today, saying the detainment of 27-year-old Alexandra Deuwel after she arrived on a tourist visa in June 2015 was a “rough outcome.”
“The fact that a young woman would come in, has been interviewed by the border force officers, detained in a cell to be turned back around, was a rough outcome,” he told 2GB radio.
“My judgment was that if the individual woman gave an undertaking that she wasn’t going to work, she had no criminal history. There’s no suggestion that anybody was acting against the law, then common sense should prevail … Why should that person be detained and deported?”
An appeal was made on Ms Deuwel’s behalf by AFL boss Gillon McLachlan to the Home Affairs Minister’s office. Mr Dutton said he had not spoken to Mr McLachlan about the case.
“I haven’t spoken to Mr McLachlan. This is just another case of, as I say, hundreds that I deal with each year that’s somehow found its way to the media,” he said.
“There’s another case … about a former police colleague of mine, I wouldn’t have spoken to that individual in 20 years. I didn’t speak to him in relation to this matter, he raised it with my office.”
Mr Dutton said the purpose of his ministerial powers was to override his department’s decisions.
“That’s the point of ministerial intervention powers, where the department has made a decision that the minister can overrule and, necessarily, by definition you’re going against it,” he said.
“It’s a fundamental principle, that’s what I’m paid to do and I apply it all equally.”
Opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said Mr Dutton’s au pair decisions were “anything other than routine” and called on the Minister to “come clean”.
He said he had not personally spoken to any former or current members of the Australian Border Force about the cases.
“I tell you what those leaks are pretty explosive and I can tell you if the media reports are correct there could be more to come. I don’t know,” he told Sky news.
“It’s not about the powers, it’s about the process. In a situation is advised against granting visas, there’s high risk according to the Border Force in the e-mail trail we’ve seen, these are explosive e-mails in relation to the French au pair. In relation to the au pair from Italy, these are troubling instances of a pattern that’s starting to emerge.”
Additional reporting by AAP