The Australian Federal Police dropped an investigation into the source of leak on apparent security risks in the medevac legislation claiming over 200 public servants had access to parts of the document, even though only 11 had the final classified file, documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal.

The legislation, which passed parliament this year, facilitates the transfer of refugees from Manus and Nauru to Australia for medical treatment.

While parliament was debating the bill in February, the Australian’s Simon Benson reported a classified ministerial briefing from Asio and Border Force that warned the bill would “undermine regional processing” and would “compromise Australia’s strong border protection regime”.

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The Department of Home Affairs asked Australian federal police to investigate the leak as a potential breach of the Crimes Act.

Case notes for the referral to the AFP, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, reveal that the department was focused on two documents: a classified briefing prepared in December and an unclassified version of the briefing requested by the immigration minister, David Coleman.

According to the notes, the department agreed to a joint investigation with the AFP and was “very supportive” of search warrants being issued as part of the investigation.

But by early March, after conducting an initial review of IT logs in the department to check who had access to the documents, the AFP decided not to investigate.

According to the case notes, the first classified document was provided to home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, the home affairs secretary, Mike Pezzullo, the Border Force commissioner, Michael Outram, as well as three deputy secretaries, general counsel and four secretaries within the home affairs department. This means the document only initially went to 11 people.

The second unclassified document was provided to Pezzullo as well as two secretaries and the legal division.

Including the divisions within the department that worked on the document before it was completed, the list of suspects was at more than 200, according to the AFP including 171 in the department, the case notes state, recommending the case be dropped owing to the high number of suspects and the low prospect of prosecution: “Based on the information provided and inquiries conducted, it is recommended the AFP take no further action in relation to this request.”

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The AFP also expressed frustration that despite repeated requests to be provided with the ministerial briefings from the department, the documents were never handed over.

Another FoI request by Guardian Australia revealed that the AFP had not spoken to Dutton’s office in relation to its investigation.

Shadow home affairs minister Kristina Keneally questioned why Dutton had gone silent on the leak, given it initially only went to 11 people, and called for him to explain what internal investigation was done by the department to find the source of the leak.



“Given that the AFP never commenced an investigation, potential suspects responsible for the leaks were never questioned, in spite of the fact what seems a small number of people had access to the final documents,” she said.

“Mr Dutton also needs to come clean and explain what the internal investigation within his own department found about the leaks. Does he have confidence these classified documents weren’t leaked by his department or his office?”

The independent medical advice panel set up after the bill’s passage reported there had been 73 admissions covering 43 people at the RPC Medical Centre on Nauru in the first quarter of 2019, with “the majority” relating to mental health conditions.

The government is seeking to repeal the legislation but the repeal bill has been referred to a Senate committee, delaying any possible repeal until November at the earliest.

The crossbench senator Stirling Griff has warned the government not to repeal the legislation, saying that doing so would risk the working relationship between Centre Alliance and the Coalition.