Minister says Quaedvlieg’s account ‘impossible’ because Craig Maclachlan was not yet employed by department

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Peter Dutton has rejected Roman Quaedvlieg’s intervention in the au pair saga, saying that claims his office sought help for a “mate” are false and fabricated while questioning the former Border Force commissioner’s mental health.

Quaedvlieg stood by his account, accusing Dutton of “casting aspersions over my actions, motivation, integrity, reputation and mental health” while promising to reconcile the different accounts in a Senate inquiry rather than debate the facts publicly.

The dispute relates to a letter Quaedvlieg wrote to the inquiry into the home affairs minister’s handling of two cases involving European au pairs facing deportation. It claimed that Dutton’s chief of staff, Craig Maclachlan, contacted him in mid-June 2015 to ask for help for “the boss’s mate in Brisbane” whose au pair had been detained.

Dutton responded on Thursday, after the letter was published in full by the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee, warning the allegations in it were “entirely false and indeed fabricated”.

Roman Quaedvlieg claims he was asked to help Peter Dutton’s ‘mate’ in au pair affair Read more

Dutton said it was “impossible” for the conversation between Maclachlan and Quaedvlieg to have occurred because Maclachlan was not employed by the minister until 7 October 2015.

“Equally, it is impossible for Mr Maclachlan to have had any knowledge of the matter, at that time, because he was not even employed by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection,” Dutton said in a statement.

“Moreover, I did not instruct any member of my staff to call Mr Quaedvlieg in relation to this matter. Nor did any member of my staff speak to Mr Quaedvlieg about it.”

Dutton said that Quaedvlieg was “bitter about the loss of his job and it has been concerning to hear allegations about Mr Quaedvlieg’s engagement with the media and Labor over a long period of time”.

“But the fabrication of evidence to a Senate committee takes his behaviour to a disturbing level.”

Quaedvlieg was sacked for misbehaviour in March and is the subject of a corruption investigation over allegations he helped a junior staff member with whom he was in a relationship get a job at Sydney airport.

Dutton suggested that Quaedvlieg had made an “enormous error in judgment by submitting false evidence” to the committee as a result of the pressure of an ongoing criminal investigation by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

Dutton said he had asked the ABF commissioner, Michael Outram, “to offer Mr Quaedvlieg any support to address his personal or mental health issues”.

Quaedvlieg responded that he had noted Dutton’s “emotive statement … with some bemusement”.

“I do not intend to debate the facts of this matter through the media as Dutton has chosen to do,” Quaedvlieg said in a statement. Instead he would “attempt to reconcile the anomaly his statement identifies” through the committee process.

“I am however [adamant] that they occurred. I completely reject his assertion that I have fabricated evidence.

“I stand very firmly by the description of the events as I have recollected and outlined in my submission.”

Quaedvlieg suggested the discrepancy may be due to “another Brisbane case which occurred at a later date and which may not yet be in the public domain”.

“I urge Dutton to desist from personal attacks and casting aspersions over my actions, motivation, integrity, reputation and mental health.

“I anticipated he may have reacted in this manner. He would serve and respect the system of parliamentary democracy much better if he engaged with its mechanisms through civil discourse and through the appropriate medium.”

Before Dutton’s rebuttal, Labor’s immigration spokesman, Shayne Neumann, said it was now clear that Dutton had “misled the House of Representatives” when he said he did not know the employers in either au pair case.

“The media reports clearly show that Peter Dutton knew the employer of the Brisbane au pair. It was his mate,” Neumann said on Thursday.

Dutton accused Labor senators involved in the committee inquiry of “hysteria and antics”, and said Bill Shorten and Neumann had “demonstrated once more their lack of judgment and integrity to all Australians”.

He called on Shorten and Neumann to detail contact with Quaedvlieg, and suggested the Senate committee will need to consider “whether Mr Quaedvlieg has breached any rules by providing false evidence”.

“These and the other false and preposterous claims have been a complete violation of the privacy of the individuals involved.”

Former immigration lawyer says job wasn't renewed because he criticised Peter Dutton Read more

On Tuesday Dutton confirmed that he knew the employer of the Italian au pair detained at Brisbane airport, a former police colleague “from 20 years ago”, but denied any personal motivation for intervening in the case.

On Thursday evening the prime minister, Scott Morrison, defended Dutton, arguing it was correct to say he had no “personal relationship” with the colleague he worked with 20 years ago.

“I know who you are but that doesn't mean we have a personal relationship,” Morrison told broadcaster Hamish Macdonald on Channel Ten’s The Project.

“The point is was there some sort of relationship that carried influence … The actual application was made under his wife’s name and it wasn’t even the same name, it went through the ministerial switchboard, basically.”

Before the fierce dispute about the alleged phone call, a Greens and Labor push for a no confidence motion against Dutton was gathering steam, with the Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie suggesting that this admission meant his evidence to parliament was arguably incorrect.