Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Paterson for his question. Yesterday in question time, I raised questions about the clear conflict of interest that the current Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, had when the superannuation fund for which he was a director—AustralianSuper—paid tens of thousands of dollars to the union he controlled, the AWU, coincidentally in the year that Mr Shorten was running for election to the federal parliament.

Today we see further reports and further questions raised about these dealings. At the eleventh hour, and 10 years after the fact, the AWU has now expressed an intention to amend the description of this payment. However, no matter how it is described, the opposition leader has failed to explain just how he managed what are clear conflicts of interest in this situation.

I know yesterday that Mr Shorten told the House, 'No rules broken. No conflict existed.' A conflict of interest clearly exists when a person wears three hats, when he has duties to both the hardworking Australians whose retirement savings were held by AustralianSuper and to the union members at the AWU and, at the same time, money is changing hands. What Mr Shorten has failed to explain is exactly how he dealt with this conflict. Did he remove himself from the deliberations by AustralianSuper about such payments? As head of the AWU, did he disclose his interest on receiving it? Did he request the payment personally himself or did someone do it on his behalf? Mr Shorten needs to explain.