Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister outline to the House why it is important that employer and employee organisations always act in the best interest of their members? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wright for his question. The Leader of the Opposition is very fond of lecturing the government about foreign donations, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander. The Leader of the Opposition presides over a frontbench that includes the reinstated Senator Sam Dastyari, a person who did not just solicit donations for the Labor Party from foreign donors; he had his personal debts paid by donors—and within a matter of months Senator Dastyari was reinstated to the Labor Party frontbench. So this side of the House is not going to take any lectures from the Leader of the Opposition or the Labor Party about donations.

In fact I notice in The Australian today it is reported that in the financial year 2006-07 the AWU national office received a $27½ thousand donation from AustralianSuper, an industry fund. In the same year, the AWU donated $25,000 to the Leader of the Opposition's first campaign for Maribyrnong—just a coincidence, of course, another Deidre Chambers moment for the Leader of the Opposition. He has a few of those. But the problem is that the Leader of the Opposition at the time was both a director of AustralianSuper and the National Secretary of the AWU. Under the Corporations Act, it is his duty to ensure he puts the interests of retiree fund members first, not his own interests. So whose interests was he putting first?

But this morning the AWU says, 'Wait, it was all an error; it wasn't really a donation'—all another coincidence, another one of the Leader of the Opposition's Deidre Chambers moments, to which we have become so accustomed. So perhaps the Leader of the Opposition could explain the other seven donations received by the AWU national office in 2006-07, coincidentally the same year that he was campaigning for election as the member for Maribyrnong, which were recorded as donations apparently in error: $11,000 from Cbus, the superannuation fund, $16,500 from Members Equity Bank, $22,000 from IUS, $17,600 from OneSteel, $15,400 from Smorgon Steel and $16,500 from Visy, all recorded as donations and obviously all recorded in error by a man called Michael Chen, who was the financial controller of the AWU and who the Leader of the Opposition, in his maiden speech, described as 'one of the smartest people I know'—but not so smart with returns to the AEC on donations from the AWU. These payments represent a significant conflict of interest, and the Leader of the Opposition has to explain: what were those payments for and why were they erroneously recorded? (Time expired)