Peter Dutton has pointed to a strong likelihood he would re-employ sacked former Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo who oversaw Dutton’s numerous fraud and theft scams such as the $538 million Paladin scam and $1.8 billion Canstruct scam.
Dutton has made a lot of mistakes during the campaign but to admit he would re-employ Mike Pezzullo says he plans to go back to ripping off the government if he is elected Prime Minister.
The SMH reported (20/5/25)
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says former Home Affairs Department secretary Mike Pezzullo, who was sensationally sacked from the public service in 2023 for misconduct and later stripped of his Order of Australia honour, “should have a role to play in the future of this country” if the Coalition wins the election.
Asked in an exclusive interview with this masthead whether he would restore Pezzullo to a senior position in government, Dutton replied: “I would say that he brings great intellect and experience to the table, and he knows the public service … I think we’re 10 steps ahead in terms of who’s appointed to public service, we have to win the election first, but I think Mike Pezzullo should have a role to play in the future of this country, and he’s contributing significantly to the defence debate at the moment.”
Pezzullo told this masthead: “I would be prepared to again serve my country if I was asked to do so by the government of the day. I strongly believe in apolitical public service and, accordingly, would again be willing to serve either side of politics.”
Options include a leadership role at one of the nation’s intelligence agencies such as ASIO or the Office of National Intelligence. An alternative would be advising Dutton in a specialist role reporting directly to the prime minister on national security issues.
Pezzullo and Dutton were a tight-knit team for six years, first in the immigration portfolio, where they were departmental head and minister respectively between 2014 and 2017, and then in the super-sized home affairs portfolio from 2017 until Dutton moved to defence in 2021. (Click here to read more)
In October 2024 I published an article titled “Protecting Peter Dutton – NACC’s $532 million Paladin fraud investigation is a sham that was completed when Scott Morrison was PM” which says in part:
Peter Dutton was Minister for Home Affairs when $billions were stolen in numerous dodgy deals and one of those deals was the Paladin $532 million fraud scam.
and:
The Paladin scam
The first contract was awarded to Paladin in 2017 and ultimately totalled $532 million.
Nine reported in February 2019:
A $423 million contract awarded to a tiny company registered to a Kangaroo Island beach shack is a distraction by Labor, says Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.
The Home Affairs department is under scrutiny after the lucrative detention centre security contract was awarded to Paladin Solutions through a limited tender process.
But Mr Dutton denied there was anything untoward about the contract. “This is a distraction away from Labor’s law,” he told Sky News this morning.
“There are probity lawyers all over these decisions and processes,” Mr Dutton said. “All of that has been followed.”
Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus described Mr Dutton’s ignorance of the Paladin tender “not believable”. “Last week Mr Dutton claimed he had no sight of a $423m contract,” Mr Dreyfus told ABC radio yesterday. “And if that was so, it would be staggering incompetence.”
“We learned that the Home Affairs Secretary, Mr Pezzullo, used special powers to authorise a closed tender, which means they could go straight to Paladin and Paladin only,” Mr Dreyfus said.
“That’s this tiny company – so tiny that they had to be given advance money to start providing the services.” (Click here to read more)
Even after the scandal hit the media, Paladin continued to get more money from Home Affairs and Peter Dutton, as Minister, has to take full responsibility for that. Why would Peter Dutton allow that to happen? The obvious answer is that he was in on the scam from the start.
And “Home Affairs Secretary, Mr Pezzullo, used special powers to authorise a closed tender, which means they could go straight to Paladin and Paladin only,” which shows that it was a scam from the start at the highest level of Home Affairs and has Peter Dutton’s fingerprints all over it.
In November 2023 Michael Pezzullo was sacked and reportedly referred to the NACC for alleged corruption. (Click here to read the full article)
To the best of my knowledge there have been no reports clearing Michael Pezzullo of any NACC investigation, so he is still likely under investigation by the NACC.
Why would Peter Dutton defend Mike Pezzullo? Because Pezzullo was Dutton’s partner in crime for the fraud scams that Dutton ran when he was Home Affairs Minister.
Nine had a leaders debate on Tuesday night (22/4/25) and had a great opportunity to dig deeper and put more questions to Dutton about Mike Pezzullo but the 4 journalists on Nine failed badly.
If Peter Dutton gets elected Prime Minister his government will make the Scott Morrison government look like amateurs when it comes to committing crimes and corruption.
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Categories: Peter Dutton
Dutton, like Trump is always looking for others to pave his way to corruption
NEVER AGAIN THE CORRUPT COALITION
Channel Nine should never moderate the leaders debates
They are just as corrupt as the Coalition
The very amateur moderator at the last debate made sure that no real controversy was touched upon.
The Bumbling Corruption Bros Strike Back – One’s a Prime Minister-in-waiting with the charisma of a malfunctioning parking meter. The other? A bureaucratic ghost freshly ejected from the public service ethics bin, still smouldering from a misconduct blaze.
Together, they’re the political version of putting expired meat back on the shelf – rancid, dangerous, and somehow “legal”.
Dutton’s grand vision for Australia? Rehire Mike “Closed Tender” Pezzullo – the man who turned a dodgy shack on Kangaroo Island into the HQ of a half-billion-dollar detention contract like he was flipping property on Shonky Brothers Renovations.
If that’s “great intellect,” then Dutton’s running on fumes and fond memories of scandal.
This isn’t leadership. It’s a dumpster dive through the Morrison years, fishing out the same old cronies in wet cardboard suits. The Dutton-Pezzullo reunion tour promises corruption classics like “The Paladin Scam Shuffle,” “Canstruct Cash Splash,” and the crowd favourite, “Probity? Never Heard of Her.”
And now Dutton thinks Pezzullo should advise ASIO?
Struth, if that happens, we’ll be outsourcing espionage to a vape store in Alice Springs by next Tuesday.
Expect briefings written on serviettes and national secrets stored in a Telstra Hotmail account.
This isn’t governance – it’s the “Real Housegrifts of Canberra”, and Dutton just handed Pezzullo a full glam makeover and a key to the VIP room.
Peter Dutton thinks Mike Pezzulo, a disgraced public servant, sacked for 14 breaches of the Public Service Act, is worth pay cheques paid for by us.
The same Peter Dutton wants to sack 10,000s of honest public servants who work hard and obey the rules, only to re-employ a fellow who thinks public service is enforcing his views over the law and rules.
If Dutton wins we will be in for another term of Decay, Rorts and Self-serving corruption. Cuts on everything but Pezzulo will be strutting around the Canberra Political Bubble like the prize goose he is.
This is cruel horror if it comes to pass. What’s going on in this country? That nonsense that was supposedly a debate would make the local high schools debating forums worthy of five stars.
Pezzulo was in charge during the time Home Affairs was too busy and understaffed to notice the criminals flying into the country
This was the period when we found out one of the worst of the crims, notorious sex trafficker Binjun Xie was operating here
Despite serving a prison term in the UK for sex trafficking, Xie slipped into the country to cause enormous harm and misery right under Dutton and Pezzulos nose
Everybody needs to read the damning Nixon report on Duttons monumental failures. It was released on 4/10/2023, just days from the Hamas attack and in the middle of the Voice campaign
There was hardly any media coverage of this, and Dutton had a lucky escape. It is-unbelievable that a bloke with such a dismal record on migration thinks he is entitled to lead the country
I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND how Politicians in Australia are NEVER held accountable for their blatant corruption, by the VERY PEOPLE that are FORCED to VOTE FOR THEM!!!
And they call this a Democracy! Who the hell is kidding WHO!