Peter Dutton attacks 'defamatory' story and says he did not benefit from au pair decision

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/26/peter-dutton-attacks-defamatory-story-and-says-he-did-not-benefit-from-au-pair-decision

Version 0 of 1.

Peter Dutton has said he intervened to allow two young tourists to stay in Australia because he thought it was “inappropriate” to deport them for owning up to their intention to work as babysitters.

On Monday the home affairs minister labelled the AAP report that revealed he had intervened to help one au pair “defamatory”, and issued a statement rejecting supposed inferences he personally benefited from the decision.

The AAP story – carried widely in various outlets including Guardian Australia – said a young woman had her visa cancelled and was detained at the Brisbane airport on 17 June 2015, before Dutton exercised his discretion to grant her a tourist visa.

The story did not state the au pair had ever been employed by him, and contained Dutton’s denial that he had breached ministerial standards as well as his statement that he did not know the au pair personally nor had she worked for him or his family.

In question time, Labor asked what prompted Dutton to intervene in the case, whether it was done on the advice of his department and for a briefing on it.

Dutton replied that the report was “defamatory” and repeated denials contained in it that his family “does not employ an au pair”.

“My wife takes very good care in my absence … of our three children,” he said. “We have never employed an au pair.”

Dutton labelled the story “completely false” and warned “I won’t tolerate it being printed again”.

“I won’t have false details about my wife and children printed and I won’t stand for it.”

In a statement after question time, Dutton accused the AAP journalist, Lisa Martin, of seeking “to suggest that decisions I have made as minister have been to my personal or my family’s benefit (in particular in relation to employment of an au pair)”.

“I categorically reject those inferences,” he said in the statement, claiming that the story “contains inferences of impropriety”.

“For the wider record, I do not personally know the individuals concerned nor does my wife,” he said. “They have never been associated with us in any way. We have never employed an au pair.”

Earlier, in question time, Dutton said he intervened in “hundreds of decisions each year”, including those brought to his attention by Labor members and offered to “release further details” about the cases in question.

Dutton revealed there were two cases where “a young tourist has come in on a tourist visa, and has declared in an interview with the border force officers at the airport – as I was advised – that they were here on a tourist visa but they intended to perform baby-sitting duties while they were here”.

“The decision that was taken – I was advised – was that the tourist visas would be cancelled, that those two young tourists would be detained and that they would be deported.

“I looked into the circumstances of those two cases and I thought that inappropriate.

“I thought if they gave an undertaking that they wouldn’t work while they were here I would grant the tourist visa, they would stay, which they did, they didn’t overstay, they returned back home.”