Right from its beginning, everything — even down to the name — was calculated to exude the Australian Border Force's (ABF) raw and rugged muscularity.

The clique of national security planners who invented and agitated for its creation only three years ago toyed with many possible labels for their brainchild — "agency", "service" and "corp" were all briefly considered — but only "force" truly fitted the bill.

After that came the paramilitary uniforms, a suite of bolstered coercive powers in a new act of parliament and, not least, the appointment of the ABF's inaugural commissioner.

Enter Roman Quaedvlieg, the chiselled model of a very modern leader for a 5,000-strong force of officers.

Roman Quaedvlieg became head of the ABF under former prime minister Tony Abbott and then-immigration minister Peter Dutton. ( AAP: Lukas Coch )

Sworn in in the presence of then prime minister Tony Abbott at Parliament's Great Hall on July 1 2015, the commissioner warned of Australia's "utopia" being under "constant threat" and made a public vow to defend it.

Aged 50, he had reached the pinnacle of a prosperous career in law enforcement and management.

Mr Quaedvlieg rose through the ranks of the Queensland Police Service over 15 years, serving at a time when Peter Dutton, the man who would later become his minister, was also in uniform.

But after a decade and a half conducting investigations, Mr Quaedvlieg set out on what appeared to be an uninterrupted rise into senior leadership positions across multiple law-enforcement agencies.

He spent two years as an executive in the aviation industry and transformed the Commonwealth's National Crime Authority into the Australian Crime Commission before moving to the Australian Federal Police in 2006.

His work with the AFP was broad, from large-scale fraud to people smuggling and sex trafficking, before running Canberra's metropolitan police service as ACT chief police officer — a position that brought with it a public and media profile in the nation's capital.

Operation Fortitude made for a shaky start

The ABF was stood up with the lofty ambitions of a government in thrall over borders.

As immigration minister, Scott Morrison had waxed lyrical about them.

"Our border creates the space for us to be who we are and to become everything we can be as a nation," he told the National Press Club in 2014.

In a tight budget environment, the government invested hope and money in equal measure so Commissioner Quaedvlieg and his officers could defend the Australian "utopia" at sea, at border entry ports and on home soil.

But long before the commissioner's personal life would consume his career, he got a painful public lesson in the difficulties of launching a new security agency with ill-prepared officers wielding words and powers with consequences they couldn't control.

Barely two months into his job, a sheepish Mr Quaedvlieg had to answer for what he admitted was a "clumsy" mistake by ABF officers.

A menacing media release on August 28, 2015 heralded the force's apparent intention to have officers "positioned at various locations around the [Melbourne central business district] speaking with any individual we cross paths with".

In conjunction with Victoria Police, the idea was to question and catch any visitor who may have overstayed their visa.

The perception the fledgling Border Force might flex its muscle in random identity checks set off angry protests in Melbourne's CBD.

A crowd of about 200 people gathered outside Flinders Street Street Station to protest against the move. ( ABC News: Jean Edwards )

"It's an unfortunate incident and shouldn't have occurred — remediation will be put in place," Commissioner Quaedvlieg would later concede.

The incident was not only "unfortunate", it also exposed a wholesale expansion of powers to staff across the entire Immigration Department in the lead-up to the ABF's creation.

An investigation by the National Audit Office found "coercive" powers to question, search detain or arrest, which had previously applied to a smaller number of officers, suddenly extended to about 15,000 Immigration and ABF employees because of the Border Force Act passed in 2015.

The investigation also exposed a catalogue of "potentially unlawful searches" conducted by officers at airports.

Difficult second-year syndrome

A commissioner's term runs for five years, and in his 18 months, Roman Quaedvlieg took to his task with restless energy.

He made visits to X-ray and scanning facilities at container ports, inspected new patrol boats with ministers and attempted to shake the leadership of the cosy international old boys' club of customs chiefs in the World Customs Organisation (WCO).

There was also an unsuccessful tilt at the vacant NSW Police Commissioner's job on the retirement of Andrew Scipione.

But in the second half of 2016, a bigger game was being played in Canberra, and Commissioner Quaedvlieg was in the middle of it.

His colleague, Immigration Department secretary Mike Pezzullo, was pushing harder than ever on a project he had championed under different titles for years: the creation of a Department of Home Affairs.

As Islamic State ran rampant with truck and bomb attacks in Europe, Mr Pezzullo was now making headway in selling his concept to an interested prime minister and an enthusiastic immigration minister in Peter Dutton.

Roman Quaedvlieg wanted a say in how the Border Force's resources would be affected by Peter Dutton's Home Affairs ministry. ( AAP: Dan Peled )

At the very least, Mr Quaedvlieg wanted a say in protecting or adding to the Border Force's resources when various security agencies and functions were split and carved.

He was also known to harbour aspirations to become secretary of the Department of Home Affairs as it became clearer the idea was finding favour within Government.

It all came to nought.

2017: The fall of Roman

Somewhere in late 2016 or early 2017, with three-and-a-half years to go in his plum $600,000 job, Mr Quaedvlieg was to make a fateful, if unwitting, decision that ruined it all.

There is much the public doesn't know and may never know about the commissioner's personal life, but the basic facts are on the record, uncontested.

Mr Quaedvlieg entered a relationship with a much younger woman in ABF, left his wife Christine in early 2017 and his new relationship became the subject of chatter within his workforce.

By May, he was on paid leave pending an investigation by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity into the central allegation the commissioner may have helped the woman land her job in the force.

Month after month passed and Mr Quaedvlieg's salary clocked over $500,000 in paid leave.

By late 2017, Mr Quaedvlieg was confiding in Canberra colleagues about his frustration at the time taken.

Questions were asked in Senate estimates but they elicited little information from Mr Pezzullo, who insists he'd deliberately put himself at arms' length from the investigation.

Immigration secretary Mike Pezzullo says he distanced himself from the investigation surrounding Mr Quaedvlieg. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

It later emerged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered a separate investigation into Mr Quaedvlieg by the head of his department, Martin Parkinson, who reported his findings to Attorney-General Christian Porter for a final decision.

Unlike the first investigation, the Parkinson report is said to have delved into intimate communications and other conduct by the commissioner and his partner — "salacious" and "inappropriate" are the descriptions used in various media reports claiming to be privy to its content.

Government sources familiar with the process told the ABC the second investigation uncovered a series of incidental actions by Mr Quaedvlieg, separate to the initial preferment allegation, which raised questions about his judgement.

What happens next for Roman Quaedvlieg?

The Border Force Commissioner is a "statutory officer" whose independence is protected by the Australian Border Force Act.

Sacking a statutory officer is rare and can only be done by the Governor-General, acting on the advice of the Cabinet.

Grounds for dismissal include that, "the commissioner engages in conduct that is inconsistent with an oath or affirmation he or she made", or that the person, "fails, without reasonable excuse, to comply with" various orders or accountability rules.

In weighing its decision to sack Mr Quaedvlieg, the Government went to great lengths to ensure it was on solid legal ground in case any claim of unfair dismissal was made.

Roman Quaedvlieg will now have to assess his future employment prospects. ( Twitter: ABF Commissioner )

During his time on the sideline and fearing the episode might end in dismissal, Mr Quaedvlieg had privately kept all his legal options open.

If he is to pursue any form of compensation through the courts or Fair Work Commission, as has been publicly speculated upon, the process would also carry the risk that details of his alleged conduct and intimate communications could emerge.

As it is, Mr Quaedvlieg must brace for some of those details to become public, because the act governing the termination process also requires that Mr Dutton explain the reasons to Parliament within seven sitting days.

As a former policing colleague, Mr Dutton appeared uncomfortable carrying out his responsibilities, admitting in a radio interview that:

"It's not an easy situation, I feel for he and his girlfriend, for his ex-wife and children. It is not an easy situation."

At 53 years of age and the subject of a high-profile fall from grace, Roman Quaedvlieg will have to assess his future employment prospects and ponder whether the island "utopia" of his imagining in July 2015 now has a dystopian gloom about it.