Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That this House require the Treasurer to immediately attend the House and make a full and unreserved statement about his personal involvement and that of his office in the Ozcar ‘deals for mates’ scandal and disclose the following information:

(1)

How many car dealers received special treatment from the Treasurer, his office and senior Treasury officials—as they were ‘not your average constituent’—as was the case with John Grant?

(2)

How many car dealers did the Treasurer personally hold telephone conversations with, to discuss their financing troubles, as was the case with John Grant?

(3)

How many car dealers were the subject of regular and lengthy updates to the Treasurer’s personal home fax, as was the case with John Grant?

(4)

How many dealers had their telephone contact details handed over to Treasury officials at a high level meeting to discuss a half a billion dollar funding proposal, as was the case with John Grant? And

(5)

How many car dealers were described in meetings between Treasury officials and finance companies as an “acquaintance” of the Prime Minister, as was the case with John Grant?

And that the Treasurer must lay before the House all emails (from departmental, APH and personal accounts), all correspondence, all fax records and all phone records related to the Ozcar ‘deals for mates’ scandal by no later than 12 noon tomorrow.

On 4 June the Treasurer was asked a question about representations having been made by his office on behalf of Mr John Grant. He answered relevantly as follows:

It is the case that Mr Grant made representations to my office, and he was referred on to the SPV—

that is, OzCar—

just like everybody else. I have no idea what the outcome of that was.

That was the Treasurer on 4 June. On 15 June, the Treasurer was asked this question:

I refer the Treasurer to his statement in question time on 4 June that Mr John Grant’s representations in relation to OzCar were referred to Treasury as the responsible agency for this taxpayer funded finance company. Will the Treasurer advise the House what manner of assistance his office requested Treasury officials were to give to Mr Grant?

Mr Swan’s response was as follows:

Mr Grant approached my office. He was referred to a departmental liaison officer who then referred him on to the relevant section of the department. Mr Grant would have received the same assistance as any other car dealer who was referred through that process received.

The Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia has sought to persuade this House, to create the impression, that Mr Grant’s concerns came through the door in the regular run of business and were just referred in a mechanical way off to the Treasury officials responsible for dealing with them. They were sent off and he was treated like anybody else. There was no special treatment. The Treasurer expressed a complete indifference to—indeed, an ignorance of—what exactly had transpired. And yet we now know the fact that these statements were completely and utterly false.

It turns out, from the emails that have been tendered in the Senate by the Treasury itself, that the case of Mr Grant was raised directly with the Treasury official, Mr Grech, by the Treasurer’s office. And so concerned were they when they raised the matter of Mr Grant on 20 February that they encouraged the Treasury official to raise this matter with Ford Credit when the Treasury met with Ford Credit at a prearranged meeting the following Monday, 23 February.

Now, that meeting with Ford Credit on 23 February was of enormous significance, because Ford Credit, in common with other finance companies in this industry, were facing very serious financial challenges. They had been struggling, as had others, to raise short-term finance to roll over their commercial paper and they were seeking financial assistance from the Commonwealth government in the order of $500 million—half a billion dollars. This was a matter of the greatest urgency, the greatest necessity, absolutely vital for the continuance of Ford Credit’s operations in Australia. It was at that meeting on 23 February that it was proposed the case of John Grant would be taken up. So not only would the Treasury seek financial support for Mr Grant, this benefactor of the Prime Minister, this provider of a free car to the Prime Minister—who has more cars and planes that one could possibly imagine—but this individual was to have his case raised by the Commonwealth, by the Treasury. That in itself is bringing to bear considerable influence on his behalf. But then the circumstances in which Ford Credit were asked to provide support were circumstances in which Ford Credit knew that it needed to do anything it could, whatever it could, to be agreeable to the government. After all, it was seeking half a billion dollars of financial accommodation from the Federal government.

What do we imagine, what would anyone imagine, went through the minds of the executives of Ford Credit when the Treasury said, ‘Oh, and there’s this chap John Grant; he’s a Kia dealer, he hasn’t been able to get his floor plan rolled over with his existing provider; do you think you’d be able to help him out?’ What are Ford Credit going to do when they are asked that question and told that he is a friend of the Prime Minister’s? They are obviously going to do exactly what they did: spring to attention and seek to render whatever assistance they can. So here we have a case where the considerable influence—and, in fact, leverage—of the Commonwealth government is brought to bear on a finance company that is seeking $500 million of finance, the provision of which is absolutely vital for its survival.

Now, this was all recited to the Treasurer in advance. On Friday, 20 February, his DLO, departmental liaison officer, Andrew Thomas, wrote to the Treasurer and said:

Treasurer

Both Godwin Grech and I have spoken to John Grant this evening.

This is this man who was not treated any differently to anybody else and in respect of whose affairs the Treasurer professed in this House a complete indifference! Thomas wrote:

… Godwin will also raise John’s case with Ford Credit when he sees them in Melbourne on Monday.

John has not yet been in contact with either—

the other one being Capital Financial—

We are confident we can arrange for John to be taken up by one of these two.

Then the email goes on to describe in considerable detail the situation of Mr John Grant, the man of whose affairs the Treasurer told this House he knew nothing; his was just another representation that came through the inbox. Following that email, we had a report from Mr Grech on Friday evening, after the meeting. He says to Andrew Thomas:

As promised, I raised the case of John Grant with the CEO of Ford Credit, Greg Cohen, during my meeting with Ford Credit in Melbourne today.

I met with Ford Credit as part of the ongoing negotiations I have been having—along with Credit Suisse—to come up with a possible response to Ford Credit’s request of 14 January 2009 that the Government arrange for Ford Credit to access up to $500 million for around 12 months to allow it to continue to run its wholesale floorplan financing business in Australia.

As you know, Ford Credit will shut down the business if they cannot secure access to capital.

I believe that we are getting close to a ‘solution’ which I will be putting to the Treasurer … within the next 2-3 weeks.

Re John Grant—Cohen gave me an undertaking that Ford Credit will actively look at taking Grant on (this would be for the Kia component of his business).

What we have here is an email sent by Mr Grech to Andrew Thomas—

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