This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Immigration officials appear to have scrambled on a Sunday to save a French au pair from deportation after the AFL boss had Peter Dutton’s office alerted to her case.

Leaked emails show the paperwork to grant her a new visa was signed just over an hour before the immigration minister was due to fly out to the Middle East and with two hours to spare before the young woman was to be deported from Australia.

The race against time for department officials is outlined in the 14-page email chain and has raised questions about the transparency of the ministerial intervention process before a Senate inquiry into the matter over the next fortnight.

Guardian Australia revealed this week that the au pair in question, Alexandra Deuwel, had her tourist visa cancelled when she attempted to enter the country on 31 October 2015.

Border security staff raised suspicions that she intended to work; she had previously been counselled about visa conditions during an earlier stay in the country.

Peter Dutton intervened in au pair visa case for AFL boss Gillon McLachlan's relative Read more

But within 24 hours Deuwel had been allowed to enter Australia after intervention from the immigration minister.

Deuwel had previously worked in South Australia for Callum and Skye MacLachlan – relatives of the AFL boss, Gillon McLachlan – and was returning to visit them. Callum MacLachlan is a joint managing director of the cattle and sheep company Jumbuck Pastoral.

The emails reveal that Deuwel was stopped at Adelaide’s international airport and, after questioning, was put into immigration transit accommodation pending removal.

During her interview Deuwel stated her main goal coming to Australia was to undertake “volunteer work” and she would receive three months’ free accommodation in return for helping with the family’s children, cooking and riding their horses.

She faced a three-month expulsion period from Australia if she were to be deported.

Immigration officials were expecting to put her on a 10.30pm Emirates Airlines flight from Adelaide to Dubai on Sunday 1 November.

Emails show that Callum MacLachlan wrote to his second cousin Gillon asking for assistance. “What can we do to have this injustice resolved and and have her tourist visa reinstated before she flies out tonight?” he wrote at 10.55am that day.

He described Deuwel as a girl of outstanding character and integrity. “There clearly has been a misunderstanding that she was intending to work for us when she is here to spend time with our family, as we consider her to be family.”

The email was forwarded by Gillon McLachlan to the AFL government relations head, Jude Donnelly, and then passed on to Dutton’s chief of staff, Craig Maclachlan.

Stephanie Forrester, an immigration department liaison officer in Dutton’s office, wrote in an email to Dutton’s chief of staff at 4.33pm that if the minister was “minded to use his ministerial intervention powers it would take approx 24 hours to prepare a submission for the minister’s consideration”.

She wrote to other immigration officials at 4.51pm that the minister was due to depart Australia for a trip to Zaatari, the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, at 9.45pm AEDT.

Forrester wrote at 5.23pm that Dutton wanted the department to present him with a ministerial intervention submission before his plane took off from Brisbane.

At 6.06pm she wrote that Dutton’s chief of staff had directed that a submission was required to accompany the decision documentation “but this can be extremely short”.

“This minister should be given the option to grant a new tourist/visitor visa valid for three months,” she said.

The minister had also asked that if he intervened to grant a visa he wanted Deuwel “very strongly counselled” that she can’t work, volunteer or do in-kind work.

Clive Murray, the assistant commissioner of the Strategic Border Command Centre, wrote in an email at 6.24pm that his section would be “providing detail which does not support the minister intervening”.

Dutton’s chief of staff had requested that financial implications of an intervention be put into the submission.

Forrester wrote in an email to other officials at 8.02pm that the following lines were to be inserted into the submission: “In the time available, we are unable to establish the extent of any further liability which may result from a decision to overturn or defer the removal.”

“Where [the department] seeks to alter arrangements once the notice to remove … has been served there is a risk that removal costs will no longer be met by the airline and they will instead fall on the department.”

At 8.20pm Forrester wrote that she had verbal confirmation Dutton had signed the submission and decided to intervene.



The aircraft doors on Dutton’s plane were closed just before 9.26pm.

Dutton has insisted he looked at the merits of the case and was not influenced by the status of the person who referred it.

“I looked at it and thought it’s a bit rough, there’s no criminal history, she’s agreed that she wouldn’t work while she was here,” he told 2GB radio on Thursday morning.



“As I understand it, she never overstayed the visa, hasn’t committed any offences, and I thought it was an application of common sense.”

Labor’s immigration spokesman, Shayne Neumann, said Dutton had some explaining to do.

“As each day goes by, there are more serious questions Peter Dutton needs to answer about the use of his ministerial powers,” Neumann said.

After the release of the emails Dutton put out a statement defending his decision to overrule departmental advice.

“By definition, given the department has made a negative decision, they don’t advise me to change their decision,” he said. “I make decisions on the merit of individual cases according to the law.”



