Ombudsman says Senate committee has already dealt with the substance of the public servant’s complaint

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The commonwealth ombudsman has refused to investigate a complaint from a home affairs employee about the Australian federal police’s handling of raids on their home and workplace over leaks related to the au pairs saga involving Peter Dutton.

In October 2018 the AFP raided a home affairs employee’s home and the Canberra office of the department over leaks concerning Dutton’s ministerial intervention in the case of two foreign au pairs.

A freedom of information request revealed that Dutton’s chief of staff, Craig Maclachlan, was alerted to the fact the raids were going to take place the day before by the deputy commissioner, Neil Gaughan.

That revelation sparked a formal complaint from the public servant to the Australian federal police in January, Nine newspapers first reported.

Dutton au pair raids may have been in contempt of parliament – report Read more

The public servant said that the text message showed there were “reasonable grounds to suspect the AFP is neither operationally independent or without political bias”.

The AFP has argued that it was within its guidelines on politically sensitive investigations to alert the minister’s office before the raids took place.

Guardian Australia can reveal that complaint was rejected by the AFP later in January, stating that the evidence the AFP provided to the Senate was sufficient. The public servant then made a complaint to the commonwealth ombudsman.

They requested the ombudsman to review the adequacy of the guidelines on politically sensitive investigations and the AFP’s compliance with the guidelines.

“Had the AFP followed its national guidelines, exercised due diligence and not engaged in politically biased activity, the warrant activity on myself should never have occurred,” they said.

Late last month, the commonwealth ombudsman investigator Kent Purvis responded in a letter seen by Guardian Australia, stating that given the matter was being looked at by the Senate privileges committee, it would be a duplication of work.

“Given this past and currently ongoing consideration and scrutiny by the Senate, I assess that a further investigation conducted by this office of the matters you raise would be a duplication of this work,” Purvis said.

A spokesperson for the ombudsman confirmed the contents of the letter.

“We determined that the Senate standing committee of privileges had issued a report which addressed the substance of the complaint. In a related development, the full Senate passed a resolution calling on the attorney general to work with the presiding officers to develop a new protocol for the execution of search warrants.

“For these reasons, we determined no further investigation by our office was warranted.”

The Senate committee found in April that the national guideline needs to be amended, and requested the attorney general work with the presiding officers of the parliament to develop a new protocol for the execution of search warrants.

Guardian Australia understands the public servant is still employed within home affairs.

Dutton’s office was not alerted before raids on the ABC and News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst last month, and the incoming AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw said on Wednesday the minister’s office would not be informed of raids before they took place unless a national security concern required the minister to be alerted.