Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion to require the member for Dobell to make a statement to the House.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Sturt from moving forthwith the following motion: That the Member for Dobell attend this Chamber without delay to make a personal explanation for a period not exceeding ten minutes with respect to the following matters:

(1) reported widely in the press but claimed by him to be misrepresentations, that:

(a) during the period he was national secretary of the Health Services Union he misused the union's funds to purchase airline tickets, accommodation, restaurant meals, electronic goods, liquor, artworks, running shoes and escort services and took cash amounts totalling $101,000;

(b) during the period he was national secretary of the Health Services Union he misused the union's funds to pay for his campaign in Dobell in 2007, spending $39,454 that he then failed to declare to the Australian Electoral Commission in breach of the Electoral Act; and

(c) he misled Fair Work Australia in relation to the misuse of the Health Services Union funds by creating an alibi that a third party was responsible for the misuse of the union's funds and by failing to reveal the extent of the misuse;

(2) to provide the factual basis for his statements on 1 August 2011 in the press that these allegations are a misrepresentation because while he had authorised payment of these transactions he did so on behalf of a third party who had stolen his credit card, his driver's licence, his mobile phone and forged his signature; and

(3) to explain to this House why he did not register the payment of a substantial gift to him by the NSW Branch of the Australian Labor Party, reported as being either $40,000, $90,000 or $150,000 towards the costs incurred in abandoning defamation proceedings against Fairfax Media Ltd in the Register of Members' Interests until at least 77 days after his receipt of those funds.

The motion speaks for itself.

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