Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is probably going to suit the minister that he gets a go after me rather than before me because my question is to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. When is the minister going to resign? He should resign or be sacked by the Prime Minister. The minister has previously claimed that he was representing his constituents when he sought a meeting with environment department officials on the environmental listing of the Monaro grasslands in March 2017. Yesterday in question time Labor revealed that Minister Taylor has told ABC Radio that he was advocating for himself as a landholder. I'll read you the interview transcript:

JOURNALIST: They do say—I mean, you said it has the potential to have a big impact on landholders, one of those landholders being a company that is—

ANGUS TAYLOR: One of the landholders is me—

What!

I'm a farmer.

And then he said:

I make absolutely no apologies for standing up for farmers in my region. That includes me … It is my job to stand up for us.

That was on ABC Radio Illawarra on 26 July 2019. It's very clear that the minister has no idea why it would be a problem that he would be using his own ministerial powers to stand up for himself without declaring his interest in the matter. It is obviously a mystery to him why the people of Australia would expect him to make the declarations that would be required under the ministerial code of conduct and the parliamentary declarations. In that regard, we already know that the minister failed to declare his joint financial interest in Jam Land Pty Ltd, a company which to this day is under investigation by his own department.

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