Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has narrowly avoided a vote of no confidence over his decision to give visas to two detained au pairs.
Labor says he's misled parliament and must be sacked, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison is standing by him.
The home affairs minister originally told parliament he did not know the people an au pair was going to work for.
It was only later revealed she was planning to work for an old Queensland Police colleague he says he hadn't spoken to for 20 years.
Mr Dutton survived a push to get to a no confidence vote against him on Thursday and Mr Morrison backed him to stay in cabinet.
"He's doing a fantastic job," Mr Morrison told parliament on Thursday.
"When it comes to border protection, the Labor Party are more interested in protecting Australia from au pairs than they are protecting Australians from violent criminals."
Three weeks ago Mr Dutton denied the women involved in the two cases were actually au pairs.
"The au pair is the flowery language that's used. It's complete nonsense," he told 2GB radio on August 30.
Internal emails show the woman detained in Brisbane in June 2015 and the woman detained in Adelaide in November 2015 were both planning to do nannying work for families while on tourist visas.
"I have looked at each of those cases on their merit, and I had made decisions based on the merit of each case," Mr Dutton told parliament on Thursday.
In the June 2015 case, Mr Dutton's police colleague Russell Keag emailed his office asking for help, stating it had been a "long time between calls".
Mr Dutton's office told the department the case was urgent, and so the Italian woman was given another visa because it was "in the public interest".
In a later case, the minister intervened to grant a tourist visa to a French au pair after he was contacted by AFL boss Gillon McLachlan's office.
Australian Greens MP Adam Bandt moved a motion to suspend standing orders on Thursday, in a bid to force a no confidence vote against Mr Dutton.
The chamber narrowly voted down the motion 68-67.
"He stood up in this chamber with full knowledge of who I was referring to and said 'No. I do not know them'," Mr Bandt told parliament.
"The best the minister has come up with is a Bill Clinton-style defence, where personal connection apparently doesn't mean personal connection."
Leader of the House Christopher Pyne said there has not been "one shred of evidence" against Mr Dutton.
Australian Associated Press
