Peter Dutton overruled advice from a senior AFP official when he stopped a French nanny from being deported.  AFL boss Gillon McLachlan had lobbied Dutton for the woman to stay.

An email trail revealed under Freedom of Information, marked 'Sensitive: Personal', and dated in 2015 was leaked to Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching.  The documents showed that the AFP didn't believe there was a reason to "support the Minister (Dutton) intervening" in the case of 27-year-old Alexandra Deuwel.  She had entered Australia at Adelaide Airport on Emirates Airline Flight 440 on October 31, 2015 on a visitor visa. 

But she admitted that she intended to work for Adelaide pastoralists Callum and Skye MacLachlan at their Barossa Valley farm, receiving "free accommodation for three months in return for helping with this family's children, cooking and riding their horses".  The ABP arrested her.

Callum MacLachlan's father Hugh MacLachlan had donated $150,000 to the Liberal Party over the past two decades.  And he's also the second cousin of AFL chief Gillon McLachlan, who reached out to Dutton's office on behalf of his kinfolk.  Callum himself sent an email asking, "What can we do to have this injustice resolved and have her tourist visa reinstated before she flies out tonight?"

But the Border Force also was in communication with Dutton.  Assistant Commissioner of Strategic Border Command Clive Murray warned that Ms. Deuwel had been "previously counselled" about using a tourist visa in earlier that year because she had previously worked as an au pair for the MacLaachlans in 2013 and 2014. 

"SBC (Strategic Border Command) will be providing detail which does not support the Minister intervening," Murray said.

There were also financial implications because Deuwal's airplane ticket out of Australia had already been purchased.

Nevertheless, Peter Dutton intervened and granted the French nanny a three month visa.

"I looked at it and thought it's a bit rough, there's no criminal history, she's agreed that she wouldn't work while she was here," Dutton said in an appearance on 2GB radio.  "As I understand it, she never overstayed the visa, hasn't committed any offences, and I thought it was an application of common sense."

Dutton denies being influenced by the VIP status of the nanny's benefactors.