Just before I say goodbye for the day, there’s been quite a bit of reaction to today’s hearings on social media. Particularly, surprise surprise, about the entry of a new line of questioning into the mix. Namely, what’s the go with the Argentinian polo player?
Polo. Bingo. The business visa the AFL chief interviews for was for a polo player. He was an Argentine polo player. Labor said this all along. So Libs intervened for an au pair and a polo player. Which does look at little 🤔 pic.twitter.com/6vp2zVtG4h
— Samantha Maiden (@samanthamaiden) September 5, 2018
So the AFL’s Gillon McLachlan also had enquiries made about ANOTHER visa. When Scott Morrison was Immigration Minister. ABOUT A POLO PLAYER 🐎🐎🐎
— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) September 5, 2018
The French au pair, the Argentinian polo player, the AFL boss and the Home Affairs Minister.
— Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) September 5, 2018
This is starting to sound like the making of a cracking whodunnit #auspol
Who among us hasn't done a favour for their au pair or a visiting polo player at some stage? Do you expect that I should neglect to visit a kindness upon my butler, hallboy or scullery maid were they to similarly fall foul of the authorities?!
— Adam Liaw (@adamliaw) September 5, 2018
In summary
So, after a slow start things got pretty interesting in the afternoon. Here’s what we learned after after about five hours of hearings.
- In 2014 AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan previously asked an employee, former Liberal party staffer Jude Donnelly, to make inquiries about the visa of “a friend of a friend”, an Argentine polo player who was seeking to come to Australia.
- Donnelly contacted someone within the office of then prime minister Tony Abbott and heard back within a few days.
- McLachlan believed the visa had already been approved when Donnelly contacted Abbott, but wasn’t certain.
- On the 2015 case, in which Peter Dutton intervened, McLachlan rejected the suggestion that without his help the au pair would’ve been deported.
- Eve Watts, a senior migration consultant from Inclusive Migration Australia, told the committee she had a client who received a ministerial intervention. The client had previously been involved in the campaign of Liberal party MP Andrew Hastie. She didn’t say whether she believed that influenced the intervention.
- She had another case in which a client was able to contact another Liberal party MP, Ben Morton, through community contacts. That person also received a ministerial intervention.
- Earlier, the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzullo confirmed the leaking of emails about Dutton’s intervention have been referred to the Australian federal police.
That will just about do me for the day. My colleague Paul Karp will have a wrap up of everything we’ve heard today soon! Thanks for following along.
Updated
And that’s it! Eric Abetz has summed it all up very nicely. It is, he says, “a very happy ending to what could have been a very unfortunate situation”.
Abetz asks McLachlan whether the visa of the Argentinian polo player had already been approved before his intervention.
McLachlan says that’s “broadly my understanding”.
I don’t know the ins and outs I was asked to make an inquiry [and] the advice I got was that it had already been processed. that’s my understanding without having full understanding of all the details.
Updated
Eric Abetz has just apologised to McLachlan and Donnelly “for this absolute monumental waste of time”.
Gillon McLachlan says his “instinct” is that he hasn’t spoken with Dutton for “a couple of years at least” and has only met Scott Morrison once at a friends of parliament event.
Updated
The man seeking the business visa was an Argentinian polo player, we’re told.
Updated
AFL boss approached Tony Abbott's office for Argentine polo player
Well. I just took a deep breath. Murray Watt asks McLachlan whether the Adelaide case is the only time he’s approached the government about a visa.
Not exactly, apparently.
McLachlan reveals that in March 2014, before Peter Dutton was the immigration minister, he was contacted by a “friend of a friend” who was seeking to come to Australia on a business visa. McLachlan asked Donnelly to contact someone in the government to see what was happening with the visa.
I was contacted by someone who was waiting on a business visa, a friend of a friend, who was wanting to come into the country who had language issues. I asked Ms Donnelly whether the visa had been approved or not asked her to find out status of the application.
Who was the minister at the time, Watt helpfully asks.
It was Scott Morrison.
Donnelly says she contacted someone with the then prime minister’s office (the PM was Tony Abbott) and heard an answer “within a couple of days”.
“I believe this guy was waiting on a business visa [and I asked] could you let me know the status of where it’s at. Sometime later I heard back it had already been processed.”
Updated
Jude Donnelly says she’s spoken to Dutton’s chief of staff on a few occasions. She’s a former political staffer, remember. But says she’s never worked with him directly. They’re not friends, she says.
Updated
Gillon McLachlan describes his relationship with Peter Dutton:
It’s a normal relationship I would have with a minister on either side of politics. He was for a brief period of time the sports minister and I think I’ve probably met minister Dutton half-a-dozen times. I have recollections of formally and informally meeting three times so I know him in a way that is as described.
[I recall] once meeting with him in his office in Brisbane when sports minister. I also have recollection of speaking to him at a friends of parliament drinks at Parliament House and also saying G’day to him at a grand final one year. Those are the three I can recall.
Updated
OK, next up is Gillon McLachlan, the chief executive of the AFL.
He’ll be joined by Jude Donnelly, the AFL’s head of government relations. Donnelly is a former Liberal staffer.
You may remember we revealed last week Dutton saved an au pair from deportation, intervening after McLachlan raised the young woman’s case.
Updated
Just back to that earlier post about Eve Watts, a senior migration consultant from Inclusive Migration Australia, mentioning a client who had successfully obtained a ministerial intervention.
The individual, she said, had worked in some capacity on the campaign of Liberal Party MP Andrew Hastie. It’s unclear whether that was a formal position or as a volunteer. She was later asked whether that person believed it was his relationship with the Hastie campaign that secured the ministerial intervention, but didn’t give a clear answer.
A lot of the concern from the migration experts appearing at the moment relates to the way ministerial interventions are rejected. All three of the witnesses have described putting in weeks of work compiling cases in favour of intervention, only to receive a one-line rejection letter a few weeks or months later without any explanation.
It paints a picture of the way interventions generally work which seems far removed from the details of the two au pair cases.
Can somebody please identify themselves.
Senator Eric Abetz is getting a bit dizzy from all the disembodied voices appearing via phone hookup.
From inside of the hearing...
The Dutton #aupair inquiry has just heard from 3 experienced migration agents. None of them have ever obtained Ministerial intervention, to obtain a visa, over the phone, within hours, without substantial documentary evidence. It’s not what you know...
— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) September 5, 2018
Sarah Dale from the Refugee Advice & Casework Service said there were “clear guidelines” for when the minister should intervene. She said she’d seen many cases where the guidelines hadn’t been followed in relation to a refugee family.
She refers to the removal of a Tamil father two months go. “The guidelines were very clear that intervention was warranted and that he should not be removed given he had a child here in Australia with protection needs,” she said.
“It’s alarming for us that guidelines aren’t being followed, but further we don’t get any reasons, or a justification for when and why it was refused.”
Murray Watt is asking about some of the experiences of these migration agents with interventions.
He wants to know whether anyone has heard of an application being accepted within a matter of hours. “No,” is the answer from all three witnesses.
Eve Watts (sorry, similar names) says she’s never made an application for ministerial intervention with less than 20 statutory declarations attached to it.
“When you present cases that absolutely meet the guidelines but they’re knocked back without any explanation or reasoning it doesn’t make sense,” she said.
Murray Watt asks whether any of the witnesses have ever just called someone to ask for an intervention. The witnesses are appearing by phone hook up, and there is a bit of scoffing on the line.
“That would never happen,” Duncan says.
Eve Watts says she doesn’t even know of a phone number she could call.
Dutton intervened for person who worked on Andrew Hastie campaign, migration consultant says
Eve Watts, a senior migration consultant from Inclusive Migration Australia, is talking about some specific cases of families seeking ministerial intervention. Her example again go to the role that lobbying plays in an intervention.
She says that in four years of practicing in this area she’s made six applications for ministerial intervention. Two of them succeeded. In the first successful case, she says, the individual had worked on the political campaign for Liberal MP Andrew Hastie in West Australia.
In the second, the person had used “community connections to lobby” another WA MP, Ben Morton.
Another two failed and the people were deported. She has another two outstanding including one from a Zimbabwean family who have lived in Australia for seven years. Their youngest daughter is five and was born here. The family had to apply for intervention after changes to religious visa laws. Watts says the family are from an area that is “internationally recognised as the most undeveloped area of Zimbabwe”, and have become active in their community in Australia.
The family received a rejection from the minister just yesterday.
Updated
OK, let’s get into the crux of what Helen Duncan is saying. She’s speaking generally, and not specifically about the au pair issue. The case she raises is about a Vietnamese family who had been in Australia on various visas for nine years before being rejected for ministerial intervention.
Duncan refers to three other similar cases she has dealt with that were accepted for ministerial intervention. The difference, she says, is that in the other three cases the families involved were able to find someone within parliament to lobby on their behalf. Duncan says it raises an important point about the role lobbying plays in the process.
In my opinion the [Vietnamese family] met the guidelines for intervention, as did the other three other cases I had assisted with that had been approved. In the other cases clients had make representations and found someone in the government to lobby for them. The other case was not approved because they did not have anyone lobbying for them.
Duncan says that while she isn’t opposes to people being able to lobby local MPs, she found it “disheartening” that those with less access.
“There’s no way lobbying should be the main determinant and at the moment with little transparency in the system we only have our suspicions.”
OK, we’re back. Hope you all had a lovely lunch. I spent mine scrambling through an NFL fantasy draft. I took Saquon Barkley with the seventh overall pick, if you’re interested.
Anyway, back to slightly more important matters. Namely, the Senate committee hearing into “allegations concerning the inappropriate exercise of ministerial powers, with respect to the visa status of au pairs, and related matters” (or, what’s the go with the au pairs).
We’re about to hear from Helen Duncan, a registered migration agent of nearly two decades. Duncan’s submission to the inquiry compared the minister’s decision in the cases of the two au pairs with his failure to heed the pleas of a Vietnamese family who had lived, worked and studied in Australia for a decade. She’ll be joined by Eve Watts, a migration consultant and Sarah Dale, the principal solicitor from the Australian Refugee and Casework Service.
In other Peter Dutton-related news, after the flurry of legal advice released in spill week, academic Anne Twomey has weighed the arguments on both sides regarding Dutton’s eligibility to sit in parliament.
The issue is whether Dutton breaches section 44(v) of the constitution – which bans “direct or indirect pecuniary interests in an agreement with the commonwealth” – because of his business interests in childcare centres.
The solicitor general, Stephen Donaghue, said the better view is “no”, Labor’s advice from Bret Walker said the better view is “yes”. The short version of Twomey’s advice is: this is a genuine legal issue and only the high court can decide.
The long version:
Twomey notes that although there may be no capacity for public servants to influence Dutton because they are obliged to pay subsidies to all childcare centres, that is only one rationale for section 44(v). Another is “prevention of financial gain which may give rise to a conflict of duty and interest”.
Twomey argues just because subsidies are paid under a statutory scheme, that does not necessarily mean there is no “agreement with the commonwealth”. She also suggests there may be an agreement because childcare centres get extra payments if they agree to take part in the Inclusion Support Programme.
Donaghue agreed that was likely to be an agreement with the commonwealth, but Dutton may not have an interest in it because the funding was given for specific purposes (rather than provide a surplus that could go to Dutton’s family trust).
Twomey concludes:
There is a genuine legal issue about Mr Dutton’s possible disqualification from parliament. It is an issue about which reasonable minds may differ. When it comes to the childcare subsidies, it may well be the case that the statutory regime precludes the arrangement from being regarded as the type of agreement to which s44 is directed.
But this is by no means certain. It may depend upon how strictly the court of disputed returns, if the matter was referred to it, was prepared to enforce the provision and whether its focus was on the protection of parliamentarians or the system of representative government ... These issues will not be resolved and the uncertainty will remain unless they are dealt with by the court of disputed returns.
Updated
Right, we’re done with home affairs. Besides the news that the leaked interdepartmental emails have been referred to the AFP, it’s hard to argue we’ve learned much more this morning.
We’ll be back after lunch, when the AFL chief executive, Gillon McLachlan, is expected to give evidence.
Louise Pratt notes Home Affairs didn't bring a number of witnesses who could've answered questions. Pezzullo counters they could've come and refused to answer for other reasons. Excellent. #aupair #auspol https://t.co/U6cXFMfBCn
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) September 5, 2018
Updated
Here’s the full quote from Eric Abetz just now. Someone should make this into a T-shirt.
There has been some bizarre criticisms about the quickness that one of these cases was determined by the minister. I would have thought we should all be celebrating that the department and the minister can make quick decisions rather than keeping someone in detention unnecessarily.
Updated
I have nothing further to add ...
Eric Abetz: "I think we should be celebrating the fact the dept can make quick decisions rather than keeping people in unnecessary detention." #auspol #aupair
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) September 5, 2018
Updated
Going back to the referral of the leaked emails to the Australian federal police, Murray Watt is pointing out that the minister who oversees the AFP is Peter Dutton.
McKim suggests that’s what happens when the oversight of security agencies is concentrated under one home affairs umbrella.
Updated
This is curious ...
Senator Kitching is asking whether the immigration department or Australian Border Force has ever been contacted by the Queensland police service regarding disciplinary proceedings against the police officer who contacted Peter Dutton about the Brisbane au pair case.
Pezzullo and Outram both say they have no knowledge of such an approach.
Updated
Watt wants to know whether the department incurred as a result of the intervention. Essentially because airlines have to be notified when a deportation is due to occur, but in these two cases it didn’t go ahead.
The officials say they don’t think so, but take it on notice.
We’re told that in both the Brisbane and Adelaide cases the request for an intervention briefing came from the department liaison officer placed in the minister’s office.
Pezzullo says a request from the department liaison officer is “always taken to be a request from the minister”.
Watt is getting increasingly frustrated with Pezzullo.
He accuses him of “coaching witnesses” after Pezzullo steps in before another officer asks a question and suggests he asks it in the general rather than the specific.
Watt wants to know what it was that the au pair at the centre of the Brisbane case said that made ABF officers believe she intended to work illegally.
Watt withdraws the remark.
Updated
The committee chair Louise Pratt has just sent a not-too-subtle message about the immigration department’s referral of the leaked emails to the AFP.
She asks Pezzullo whether he’s aware of the AFP’s investigation into leaked material from NBN Co.
That didn’t go well for the AFP.
“I know the providence of those documents, I’m chair of this committee [and] I need to ensure witnesses to this committee have protections and have to make sure Mr Pezzullo is aware of that,” Pratt says.
So, we know those emails were submitted to the Senate inquiry.
Updated
McKim asks Border Force head Michael Outram whether the ABF has policies to deal with potential conflicts of interest between officers and the people they deal with. He suggests generally yes, but takes the question on notice.
Updated
Nick McKim from the Greens is here. We’re going over ministerial intervention numbers again. He wants to know how many ministerial interventions occurred contrary to departmental advice.
Pezzullo says the department’s advice is more about identifying “risk factors” to intervention, rather than suggesting whether or not to intervene.
It gives the minister the options that he has and a description of what some of the risk factors are including the fact [in the Adelaide case] that there was a very high risk of the person intending to work so in that circumstance it would be important to apply stipulations.
Oh now we’re on to secrecy laws!
O’Sullivan wants to know whether the recipient of a leaked document – ie a journalist or politician – is committing a crime. Pezzullo is hesitant to offer an opinion, but gently reminds the senator that his government is currently seeking to pass just a law.
O’Sullivan then asks whether Pezzullo would be concerned if he was told the person who leaked the emails – whether real or hypothetical – was “sitting at this table”.
Pezzullo offers no comment.
Updated
Department leak referred to Australian federal police
It’s Barry O’Sullivan’s turn: the Nationals senator was very eager to ask some questions last session. He get his turn and asks whether, hypothetically of course, the leaking of interdepartmental emails would be concerning and/or pose a national security risk.
Pezzullo agrees: “I would find that behaviour unacceptable and probably in breach of criminal law.”.
He then confirms the non-hypothetical leak has been referred to the Australian federal police.
Everyone then spends a while getting a bit confused about whether we’re talking about the hypothetical leak or the actual leak.
Updated
That first session was really defined by Labor MP Murray Watt’s frustration that he’s not getting the answers he wants from these departmental officials.
We learned (or didn’t learn):
- While there is no evidence either of the two au pairs broke their tourist visa conditions, no compliance checks were actually undertaken.
- Dutton has intervened 4,129 times in visa cases since becoming immigration minister in 2014, but up to June he had intervened in as few as 14 tourist visa cases.
- The Brisbane case – where Dutton intervened on behalf of an au pair who had worked for a former police colleague – may have been the first intervention.
- Murray Watt wanted to know whether there are any other examples of a person subject to deportation receiving ministerial intervention so quickly. The department couldn’t answer.
- Both women left the country on time.
Updated
Watt has been asking about timeframes. He wants to know whether any other ministerial interventions occurred as quickly as the Adelaide case.
The emails I referred to earlier show she was granted the visa in less than 24 hours.
He’s not getting far though.
He asks the very quiet commissioner of Border Force, Michael Outram, whether he’s ever seen a ministerial intervention occur so quickly. Outram responds that he’s only aware of the two specific cases that are the subject of the inquiry.
“I hope we’ve got someone here who can answer some of these questions,” Watt responds.
And that takes us to morning tea!
Updated
Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan is unhappy that he hasn’t been given any questions yet. I don’t have anything else to add on that. He’s just complaining a lot.
Updated
Pezzullo is saying he’s “not prepared to speak to documents put into the media through unlawful and indeed criminal disclosures”.
He’s talking about this story, which revealed leaked emails show the paperwork related to the Adelaide case shows a new visa was signed with two hours to spare before the young woman was to be deported from Australia.
Updated
A good breakdown of the numbers we’re dealing with here.
Peter Dutton au pair inquiry:
— Daniel McCulloch (@dlmcculloch) September 5, 2018
* Minister's intervened in visa cases 4129 times since taking on role in 2014
* Granted 2000+ visas in 2015 alone
* However, he's intervened in as few as 14 tourist visa cases during past four years
* First au pair case may have been first occassion
Watt is asking about visa compliance. It has previously been reported by us that Dutton had ben advised that granting a visa to one of the au pairs in question was of “high risk” because she had previously been warned about work restrictions.
The department confirms no compliance was undertaken after the new visa was granted.
Updated
Labor senator Kimberley Kitching wants to know who asked for the minister’s intervention in the Brisbane and Adelaide cases. Was it a third party? We sort of know the answer to this, but she’s obviously trying to get the department on the record.
Pezzullo:
In the general the two women involved in the Brisbane and Adelaide case sought assistance [but] who approached the minister’s office, who got in contact, their bona fides and relationship with the minister is known to us at one level because of the document trail created. We have second- or third-hand knowledge of the concerned party [but] who the minster’s office deals with who gets in touch with them is really a matter for the minister and his staff.
Updated
Abetz again:
The ministerial intervention in these two cases, in the department’s view, were completely legal?
Pezzullo:
Well we would never put the minister in a position of acting unlawfully. Acting within the relevant guidelines we provided submissions which set out certain options and he exercised his options [within] the law.
Abetz concludes that it was all entirely appropriate. Case closed!
Abetz is now asking whether he’d be breaking the law if he let a tourist do the washing up after he invited them over for dinner.
Many a person that has been on a tourist visa has in fact stayed at our residence and has kindly assisted on occasion with washing up or preparing a meal for my wife and I and I was just wanting to ensure that would not be a breach of the law.
Good that we’re sticking closely to the issue at hand.
Eric Abetz is here!
He’s asking whether either of the two women at the centre of this had a criminal record.
“Not on the information I have,” is the response from Malisa Golightly, a deputy secretary from the immigration department.
Abetz then asks whether either of the two women broke any condition of the visa while they were here.
“Not to my knowledge,” Golightly says.
Watt then intervenes to ask whether the department ever actually did any compliance checks.
Golightly: “In visas as short as this we wouldn’t usually do compliance work.”
“So when you say that to your knowledge people complied, that’s because no one ever really checked,” Watt responds.
Abetz then suggests people have a right to the presumption of innocence.
Updated
Hm.
Immigration officials didn’t bring any of the relevant case files to the Senate hearings this morning. They’re here to help, though!
Labor committee members are asking for a breakdown of the 25 subclass 600 visa interventions. Murray Watt says he believes that to June this year there had been only 14 such interventions and that the other 11 have come since then.
Watt:
For all the talk about thousands of cases where minister Dutton has compassionately, generously intervened ... it could be that it’s as few as 14 times that he’s intervened to grant someone this kind of visa, the first being the Brisbane case.
Updated
Watt is digging into the numbers on interventions.
We’re told there have been 25 ministerial interventions for people on tourist visas – such as the Brisbane case and the Adelaide case – since Peter Dutton became immigration minister in December 2014.
Watt suggests the Brisbane case I referred to earlier was the first time Dutton used his ministerial powers to intervene and grant a visitor (subclass 600).
Pezzullo says he’ll have to check that.
Updated
Labor’s Murray Watt opens with a zinger.
There’s only one question, isn’t there? What’s the go with the au pairs?
He’s trying to make a serious point though. The government has been less than forthcoming on this case, and he wants to know whether the department officials will actually answer questions.
Pezzullo is reading out an opening statement. He says the departments will be able to give evidence on the two cases (we’re calling them the Brisbane case and the Adelaide case) but not on the minister’s thinking process.
He’s outlining the minister’s broad powers to intervene in individual immigration cases under the act.
What is or is not in the public interest are matters for the minister to decide.
He then goes to how common or otherwise these interventions are. We beat him too it, though, so you can just read about it here.
Updated
OK we’ve begun, just running through the rules of the committee and then we’ll hear from Michael Pezzullo, Michael Outram and other Immigration and Border Force officials.
Looks like we’re running a few minutes late here.
While we wait, I’ll try to give you a quick rundown of the curious case of Peter Dutton and the au pairs to now.
As I mentioned earlier, the AFL boss Gillon McLachlan will give evidence later today.
Dutton intervened in the case of a young French woman, Alexandra Deuwel, after McLachlan raised the young woman’s case when she was detained at Adelaide’s international airport late on 31 October 2015.
Deuwel had previously worked for McLachlan’s relatives Callum and Skye MacLachlan in South Australia and was returning to visit them.
In a another case, a young Italian woman Dutton saved from deportation came to Australia to work for the family of a former police force colleague living in Brisbane.
Updated
We’re due to start here soon but before we do it might be worth reflecting on just how much of a distraction this has become for the new Scott Morrison government.
Our political editor Katharine Murphy wrote earlier in the week that Labor and the Greens were working the numbers for the motion when the parliament resumes next week, and that at least one cross bencher was on board.
The numbers are very tight in the House with the government down one courtesy of Malcolm Turnbull resigning as an MP.
In case you missed it, read that here.
Updated
Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian Australia’s liveblog of the Senate legal affairs committee’s hearing into the home affair minister Peter Dutton’s au pair saga.
Today, finally, we hope to come a little bit closer to an answer to the question preoccupying Australia: what’s the go with the au pairs?
First this morning we expect to hear evidence from Michael Pezzullo, secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, and Michael Outram, the commissioner of Australian Border Force.
We’ll then hear from Helen Duncan, a registered migration agent of nearly two decades. Duncan’s submission to the inquiry compared the minister’s decision in the cases of the two au pairs with his failure to heed the pleas of a Vietnamese family who had lived, worked and studied in Australia for a decade. She’ll be joined by Eve Watts, a migration consultant and Sarah Dale, the principal solicitor from the Australian Refugee and Casework Service.
Then, finally, the main game kicks off at 2pm when Gillon McLachlan, the chief executive of the AFL, and Jude Donnelly, the AFL’s head of government relations.
You may remember we revealed last week Dutton saved an au pair from deportation, intervening after the AFL’s chief executive officer, Gillon McLachlan, raised the young woman’s case.
You can read our preview on what to expect from today’s hearings here.
Updated
