A NSW Labor Party official facing child pornography charges was formerly a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Melbourne the ABC can reveal.
Peter Hansen, 61, was arrested at Sydney Airport in October and charged with producing child pornography in the Philippines and importing child exploitation material.
He was returning from Vietnam.
Mr Hansen was the Labor branch secretary of Cabramatta in Sydney's south-west, but his membership was suspended on Monday.
The Archdiocese of Melbourne told the ABC Mr Hansen was a priest there, until he resigned from the ministry in 2011.
The church is yet to respond to questions about the circumstances surrounding his resignation.
According to his Linkedin account, Mr Hansen was the founder of the Mary of the Cross Centre in June, 2000, in Fitzroy.
The centre provided counselling and support for victims of drug and alcohol abuse.
It also shows he obtained a bachelor of theology from the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne and a PhD in Asian history and religious history from the Melbourne College of Divinity.
Mr Hansen has described himself as a "proud Cabramattan" — a suburb with the highest proportion of Vietnamese speakers in the country — and moved to Vietnam around January, 2018.
On October 3, Mr Hansen posted on his social media a photo of his Vietnamese driver's licence with the caption "O blessed day! For which I have waited 27 years!".
He is fluent in Vietnamese and has worked as a compensation lawyer and an Asian studies lecturer and his Linkedin page showed he volunteered as a legal advisor for Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong and the Philippines.
He also previously provided legal counsel for the Transport Workers Union of Australia.
The case was subject to a suppression order, which was lifted yesterday, and the 61-year-old will face a bail hearing in the NSW Supreme Court later this month.
