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

It was deliberately designed to create the impression that the Treasurer had no direct knowledge of what had happened to Mr Grant. He did not say that he did receive the same treatment as any other car dealer; he said he ‘would’ have done, as though he did not really know and he just assumed that the normal mechanical bureaucratic processes would have been complied with. That was a calculated deception—calculated to mislead the House and the public—and, until the truth came out, no doubt it was successful.

Then on 4 June he said he had no idea what the outcome of Mr Grant’s representations had been, and yet we have page after page of detailed accounts of who met whom and who rang whom. Even the following week, on 27 February, again in an email sent directly to the Treasurer himself, he is told about the progress of the dealer of whose interests and activities he professed no knowledge at all. The Treasurer is told that:

Grant said that he had a good meeting with Ford Credit on Thursday and they told him that while they are generally concentrating on Ford dealerships … they were prepared to take him on assuming the numbers add up.

And it goes on in considerable detail.

What we have here is a shocking abuse of power. We have a Treasurer who has used his considerable influence to get a favour for a mate—and not just any mate, the mate who is a benefactor of the Prime Minister.

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