Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

How many have had a representation made that day to the Treasurer’s office? How many times has a Treasury official then gone into bat for that constituent and written the most detailed response back to the Treasurer’s office? But remember this is in the context of the Treasurer saying he knew nothing about this and he had no knowledge of the progress of this. But day after day after day long emails were sent to his home fax detailing all of the representations that had been made on behalf of Mr Grant. Every single nuance—whether Mr Grant was happy, whether Mr Grant was sad, whether Mr Grant had been buoyed by the news or not—is contained in these emails.

If the members of the government still do not get what it is that the Treasurer has done—how the Treasurer has used his ministerial office and his staff and directed Treasury officials to give preferential treatment to one person and one person only—then that shows a reflection on those members. The Labor Party do not understand that the level of patronage, of cronyism and of looking after their mates is unacceptable. The member for Hunter had the decency to resign. The Treasurer should resign.

When the Treasury official Mr Grech had spoken with Ford Credit, he went back to give the Treasurer’s office a detailed description of everything that occurred. He said he had spoken with John Grant, he had given him a good rundown of where things are at, he had told him he would arrange for Capital Finance to get in touch with him. He had flagged a fallback ‘but I will not set that out here, suffice to say it involves Ford Credit’. So this is the plan and this goes to the Treasurer at home. It is interesting to note that the Treasurer was copied in on emails from 20 February, so from the Friday night he was being copied in. Then Mr Grech goes on: ‘I’m meeting Ford Credit in Melbourne on Monday and I will raise Grant’s case.’ That should have caused alarm bells to ring in the Treasurer’s office, that a Treasury official felt—in a prearranged meeting with Ford Credit to discuss Ford Credit’s application for the OzCar rules to be changed, Ford Credit’s application to access half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ funds—that he had to raise the Prime Minister’s friend’s issue with Ford Credit at that time.

The fact that that does not ring alarm bells in the minds of those opposite is of great concern. They have no understanding of what their level of patronage of cronyism and preferential treatment for their mates is doing to the integrity of this government. Then, on the Monday after Mr Grech had met with them, he gave another detailed response back to the Treasurer and to the Treasurer’s office, pages of emails on what the government now says was just another constituent. The government knows that no other constituent got this kind of treatment. The government knows that it was only the Prime Minister’s mate—who had given him a free car for years and years, who had donated money to him, who was one of his strongest supporters—who received treatment that no other car dealer in Australia received. That is why the government has worked so hard to ensure that the full facts of this case do not come out. If the government has got nothing to hide, why did it run interference in the Senate inquiry? If the government has got nothing to hide, why is it that government senators prevented Mr Grech from giving his evidence in the Senate inquiry on Friday?

In case viewers of, and listeners to, this broadcast are in any doubt of what is occurring here, this is all about the Treasurer’s use of his office, the Treasurer’s use of his staff, the directions the Treasurer gave to Treasury officials to give preferential treatment to the mate of the Prime Minister, treatment that no other car dealer in Australia received. On that basis alone the Treasurer should resign. The member for Hunter resigned for a lesser offence than this. The Treasurer should resign. He will continue to bring this government into disrepute for every minute that he stays in the Treasurer’s role. This government has lost its moral compass. This government has lost its way. (Time expired)

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