Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed his under-fire Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton, saying he too used the discretionary powers available to him when he was immigration minister.
Dutton faces a no confidence vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday after a Labor-dominated Senate committee found he misled parliament over the au pair controversy.
The committee's report said he misled the lower house when he said he had no personal connections to the employer of an au pair he gave a visa to.
Mr Morrison said he also used the discretionary powers "many, many" times when he was immigration minister: "That is your day job...to use those powers judicially."
"Ministerial discretion has been part of the immigration system... Those powers are important to give flexibility to deal with any number of difficult cases which the laws can't cope with," Mr Morrison told the Nine Network on Thursday.
