Home affairs department says ‘only two’ of the 24 instances in which Dutton granted tourist visas related to au pairs

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Liberal senator Eric Abetz claims new documents from the home affairs department “completely discredit” Roman Quaedvlieg’s evidence to a Senate inquiry into Peter Dutton’s use of ministerial discretion to grant tourist visas to au pairs.

Answers to the Senate inquiry from Dutton’s department state that of the 24 instances in which the minister granted tourist visas, “there were only two … where there were indications that the visa-holders may have been engaged in work-related activity as an au pair”.

Those were the Brisbane case in June 2015 and Adelaide case in November 2015.

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Quaedvlieg, the former Border Force commissioner, has sought to clarify his earlier evidence that he fielded a phone call from Dutton’s office in relation to the Brisbane case by suggesting his memory related to a new unreported case between October 2015 and 2016.

Abetz declared the department’s answers meant Quaedvlieg’s claim of a possible third au pair case was “not only deficient but unsustainable”.

“The Labor senators’ exaggerated claims and grand conspiracy theories have been exposed as just completely false,” Abetz said.

The Greens seized on the department’s answers to argue that the fact only two au pairs were granted tourist visas showed how rare and inappropriate Dutton’s ministerial intervention was.

The Greens senator Nick McKim said the document “puts the lie to his claim that this was for humanitarian purposes”.

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Labor has queried why six instances of ministerial intervention appear in documents tabled in parliament but not the department’s answer to the committee. These occurred on 17 September 2015, 24 March 2016, 17 June 2016, 8 April 2017, 10 August 2017 and 12 April 2018.

The shadow immigration minister, Shayne Neumann, said that Dutton and the department had “failed to come clean over his ministerial interventions to grant tourist visas.

“There are serious discrepancies between what the department has provided and what is recorded in the parliamentary tabling office.”



Guardian Australia understands that the committee chair, Senator Louise Pratt, will now write to the department asking it to reconcile the discrepancies. Quaedvlieg was approached for comment.

Labor steered clear of questioning Dutton about the au pair controversy in the House on Wednesday after an escalation the day before when the minister unleashed on Quaedvlieg, branding him the Labor party’s Godwin Grech and accusing him of “grooming” a woman 30 years his junior.

Quaedvlieg has called on the Speaker, Tony Smith, to issue a sanction, arguing a misuse of parliamentary privilege. The woman the minister referred to is Quaedvlieg’s partner, an adult. The commissioner faced an investigation over her employment at Sydney airport and was dismissed from his post.

Labor instead pressed Dutton about whether he had declared a family business interest in childcare centres and opted out of relevant cabinet deliberations.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, was asked whether he would present advice to parliament sought by Malcolm Turnbull on the question in his final days as prime minister. Morrison told the House he would make inquiries and report back.