Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Wills from moving—That this House calls on the Member for Gwydir to tell the House what conversations he had with each of the Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs Minister Downer, Agriculture Minister Truss, former CEO of AWB Andrew Lindberg and former AWB Government Relations Manager Daryl Hockey, prior to the sale of the Member for Gwydir’s AWB shares in October 2005, noting that—

(1)

the Member for Gwydir’s shares were sold just prior to the release of the Volcker Report which was highly critical of AWB;

(2)

the Member for Gwydir failed to declare the sale to the Parliament at the time, and only lodged the required declaration the day before the share sale was reported in The Australian;

(3)

the Member for Gwydir claimed in The Australian on 26 February that the share sale was not the result of inside knowledge of the contents of the Volcker Report, and that he had always intended to sell his shares when the price hit five dollars;

(4)

this claim contradicted his previous public statement that he sold his shares in order to diversify his rural investments, a diversification which in any event has not occurred;

(5)

the $5 trigger price for AWB was in fact reached 18 months earlier, on 10 March 2004, and the share price hit that point on another 30 occasions between 10 March 2004 and 5 October 2005;

(6)

the Member for Gwydir claimed to Mr Glenn Milne, reported on 26 February, and to the ABC Insiders Program, that he had not spoken to anyone about AWB or the Volcker Report prior to the share sale;

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