On 17 June 2015
then Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection & Liberal MP
for Dickson Peter Dutton overturned
a departmental decision to classify the holder of an e-Visa as “an
unlawful non-citizen” - allowing Alexandra Deuwel entry into
Australia and supplying her with a tourist visa despite her declaration that she intended to work during her stay.
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The
Australian Government has unsuccessfully attempted to hide details of the minister’s
decision.
The
Guardian, 3
August 2018:
The Australian
government spent more than $10,000 in taxpayer cash fighting a legal battle to
keep documents secret about the home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s decision
to save two foreign au pairs from deportation.
The visa status of the two
unknown young women has
been in the spotlight since March, when it was revealed that Dutton used
his powers of ministerial discretion to grant them visas on public interest
grounds.
In the first case, an au
pair whose visa was cancelled at Brisbane’s international airport in June 2015
was able to make a phone call and within a couple of hours the minister
approved a new visa.
In November the same
year, Dutton defied written warnings from his own department that granting a
visa to a second au pair was of “high risk” because she had been previously
counselled about work restrictions.
Dutton insists he
doesn’t know the two individuals involved and that they didn’t work for his
family.
The
Guardian, 28
August 2018:
The home affairs
minister, Peter
Dutton, saved an au pair from deportation, intervening after the AFL’s
chief executive officer, Gillon McLachlan, raised the young woman’s case.
Guardian Australia
understands that a French woman named Alexandra Deuwel was detained at
Adelaide’s international airport late on 31 October 2015.
Her tourist visa was
cancelled at the border because there were suspicions she intended to work and
she had previously been counselled over visa conditions during an earlier stay
in Australia.
Deuwel had previously
worked for McLachlan’s relatives Callum and Skye MacLachlan in South
Australia and was returning to visit them. Callum MacLachlan is joint managing
director of the cattle and sheep company Jumbuck Pastoral.
An AFL official,
who works for Gillon McLachlan, is understood to have contacted Dutton’s chief
of staff, Craig Maclachlan, on behalf of Callum regarding the former au
pair’s situation. Although related to Gillon McLachlan, Callum’s side of the
family spells its name differently. Craig Maclachlan is not related to either
Callum or Gillon.
On the eve of a
ministerial visit to Zaatari, a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, Dutton was
alerted to the case, by Craig Maclachlan. He used his discretion powers under
the Migration Act to grant the young woman a tourist visa on public interest
grounds within 24 hours of her arrival. The visa was granted on the condition
she undertake no paid work.
In freedom
of information documents released on Tuesday to the ABC, Dutton gives
his reason for Deuwel’s visa allowance.
“Having regard to this
person’s particular circumstances and personal characteristics, I have decided
to exercise my discretionary powers under section 195A of the (migration) act
as it would be in the public interest to grant this person a visa.
“In the circumstances, I
have decided, that as a discretionary and humanitarian act to an individual,
with ongoing needs it is in the interests of Australia as a humane and generous
society to grant this person a visitor visa (subclass 600) for a period of
three months.”….
A former department
official said what horrified frontline airport personnel most about the au pair
cases was that their decisions were being “overruled so quickly and at such a
senior level for such a trivial matter”….
On 28 August 2018 this
article was amended. A previous version said it was not known whether Craig
Maclachlan was related to relatives of Gillon McLachlan. Peter Dutton’s office
has since said they are not related.
Minister for Home Affairs Peter
Dutton issued a somewhat choleric response to media reports on 28 August 2018:
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