Nannygate Dutton’s au pair decision must be investigated

Refugee activists have called for an investigation into the Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton’s decision to personally intervene to grant a visa to an au-pair worker whose visa was cancelled on arrival in Brisbane, in June 2015.

“Dutton’s action is highly unusual and very suspicious,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, “The Home Affairs Minsiter and the government needs to come clean. If there was nothing to hide, the Minister could easily provide the basis for his decision.

“The decision is meant to be ‘in the public interest’, the public has a right to know.”

The revelation of the Minister’s intervention in 2015, follows his call to fast-track visas for white South African farmers.

“The Minister is usually fast-tracking the rejection of protection visa applications. Rohingyan farmers, fleeing ethnic cleansing, who made applications when they arrived by boat in Australia, were sent to Nauru and Manus Island,” said Rintoul.

Over 23,000 attended national Palm Sunday rallies to ‘Welcome Refugees’, and to call for the Rohingya farmers and all the other refugees and asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru to be brought to Australia.

Canberra Palm Sunday rally claimed a crowd of over 3000, with Sydney (4000) and Melbourne (10,000), while many regional towns (including Bendigo, Townsville and Whyalla) also hosted rallies.

Almost 94,000 people have also signed a petition calling on Peter Dutton to return the Tamil asylum seeker family that was snatched from Biloela.

“If Peter Dutton was really concerned about the ‘public interest’, he would respond to public calls of the Biloela petition and the tens of thousands who marched on the weekend.

“But it looks like Peter Dutton is more concerned with his serving his own political interests.”
Jane Salmon for Ian Rintoul, Refugee Action Coalition