Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of answers given by Senator Minchin during question time today. We all know that the Prime Minister wants to draw a line under events surrounding Senator Santoro and his lack of compliance with both the Senate rules and the ministerial code of conduct. Of course he wants to draw a line under these events. The Prime Minister himself said that they are embarrassing. He said himself that he is angry. Of course he does not want the scrutiny that we are obliged to apply to his behaviour along with that of the former Minister for Ageing. Of course he does not want us to look at what has occurred but, unfortunately, that is what we are obliged to do.

It is important, in these circumstances, to look at the time line of events leading up to 3 pm last Friday. The declaration on 6 September by the former Minister for Ageing stated that there were no shareholdings held by that minister. It would seem that at that point the Prime Minister and his office did not take the opportunity to ask any questions. They clearly did not use the opportunity to look at that declaration. On 27 January 2006 Senator Santoro was sworn as a minister of the Crown. At that time he had a responsibility for arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. According to what he has said to the media, he owned a package of shares in CBio, a company which is investigating pharmaceuticals in the use of arthritis. The ministerial code of conduct said:

Ministers are required to divest themselves, or relinquish control, of all shares and similar interests in any company or business involved in the area of their portfolio responsibilities.

At around the same time, when he became a minister, the minister would have had to declare his financial interests on the Prime Minister’s register of interests for ministers. He said that he overlooked the CBio shares when sorting out his listed portfolio to comply with ministerial requirements, so the shares were not declared to the Prime Minister at that time. We also know that he says that he has divested himself of other packages of shares that he thought did conflict with his ministerial responsibilities. The question that has to be asked is whether he advised the Prime Minister at that time of the divestments that he made of packages of shares which he has acknowledged were in conflict with his ministerial responsibilities.

We also know that, in August 2006, CBio announced that its government supported study had delivered a significant new anti-inflammatory compound which could provide new hope for arthritis sufferers. At that time, there was a range of media commentary about the success of CBio. It is unbelievable in the extreme that the former minister did not twig to his ownership of CBio shares at that time. These successes were very widely reported. They were reported in the mainstream media, and they were reported in the medical journal Lancet. As we know, Senator Santoro had responsibility for arthritis. He would have received, through his ministerial office, relevant clippings. If he read the clippings saying that CBio had been enormously successful, surely at that point he would have twigged to the fact that he had, in his ‘bottom drawer’—to use his own words—a set of shares.

More important is the role of the Prime Minister. Why did the Prime Minister not ensure that the register was correct in October 2006 when the minister said he owned the shares? It is inconceivable that he did not ask the minister if he had any other shareholdings. Why did the Prime Minister cover up and not immediately require—at that point, in October 2006—that the register be changed? (Time expired)