A few months ago Border Force chief Roman Quaedvlieg was dismissed from his incredibly sweet $618,000 per year job for “failing to disclose a change in his relationship status and modifying policies to advantage a candidate for recruitment” – or, to put it another way, using his position to get his new girlfriend a job.
And the investigation into Quaedles took nine months, which seemed excessively long. That it happened at all was in itself unexpected, given the intense security of everything under the Home Affairs portfolio.
But as the Guardian explained at the time, in a line that now resonates with particular significance, “Malcolm Turnbull referred the case to Christian Porter, appointed attorney general in December, to prevent any apprehension of bias in the home affairs minister Peter Dutton deciding on Quaedvlieg’s fate.”
And since Q-Tip was given the boot he’s felt duty bound to reveal a lot of very specific information about certain requests he’d received from P-Dutty.
Last week it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald that Quokka “wrote to the Senate inquiry to reveal the phone call he received from Mr Dutton’s chief of staff in June 2015, seeking help for a “mate” of the minister who had an au pair in detention at Brisbane Airport.”
And Pete responded with his trademark gentle good humour and quiet dignity, denouncing his old pal, denying the allegations and asking that Border Force offer Roman “any support to address his personal or mental health issues”. Because saying someone’s crazy is what mature, professional public representatives with a duty of care to their former employee do in a public forum, right?
The gif that we assume Dutton meant to send to Quaedvlieg but probably accidentally sent to journalist Samantha Maiden instead.
And now Quizbot has retaliated with some more details of which he figures the public might want to be aware: that the Dutster contacted him asking him to give some sweet Border Force jobs to a couple of his Queensland police buddies:
“One of the two policemen, Matt Stock, is a good friend of Mr Dutton’s, according to sources with knowledge of the events. The second man, John Lewis, is the son of corrupt former police commissioner Terry Lewis.”
And look, Dutton’s long been a champion of the government’s jobs and growth agenda – he just hadn’t specified who those jobs were for.
As with the au pairs question the issue isn’t necessarily whether anything illegal was done so much as how this relates to the integrity and trustworthiness of a senior minister. And while it seems unlikely that Dubstep’s going to fall on his sword, the question remains: how long will Scott Morrison elect to take ownership of Pete’s cockups?
Oh, it’s going to be an interesting week in parliament! And it’s only Tuesday!