Roman Quaedvlieg, the former head of the Australian Border Force, has defended his use of text messages after reports he exchanged 14,000 of them with his girlfriend in a year.
On Thursday the governor general sacked Quaedvlieg for misconduct after multiple investigations into allegations he sought to arrange a job for his girlfriend at the Australian Border Force and failed to declare the relationship.
The Courier Mail reported there remained disagreement over when Quaedvlieg and his girlfriend became “partners”, for the information of the Australian government security vetting agency. It said he and his partner exchanged about 14,000 text messages in the space of a year, and that ABF staff thought she was his goddaughter.
Quaedvlieg did not deny the claims but on Friday said he used messaging services as “an essential part of the job”, like other public servants.
“Officials are also entitled to use their official devices for reasonable private use in recognition that their public lives often consume significant portions of their time and they, like most people, have a need or want to communicate with loved ones, or to conduct minor private household transactions while engaged in work duties,” he said in a text message.
“I have never had a verified total number, or a breakdown of messages sent and/or received, put to me as part of this investigation, nor does it form any part of the grounds for my termination as tabled in parliament yesterday.”
A statement from the government on Thursday outlined three grounds for the sacking, including misbehaviour, misconduct, and failure to disclose a material personal interest which related to the affairs of the ABF.
It said he modified policies relating to recruitment to advantage a candidate for an ABF job and personally acted to advantage their application.
He also failed to disclose his relationship to the vetting agency “within a reasonable time”, it alleged, and made “a willfully or recklessly false statement” to minister, Peter Dutton, about his relationship.
He also failed to disclose that he had an interest in the candidate securing the position, the statement said.
It said Quaedvlieg’s sacking was “unfortunate” given his long and conspicuous career, but “the relevant conduct when beyond an isolated error of judgment and ultimately undermined his capacity to continue in the office of ABF commissioner”.
Quaedvlieg maintained his denial of “those particularised grounds”.
He said he had declined to resign when given the opportunity because it was “tantamount to a concession of culpability”.
