Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Minister for Finance was aware before the election that the bank account nominated to receive rental payments for former Senator Day's electoral office was linked to Bob Day? Is it not clear from the statement of the finance minister that the government knew before the election that the deal was completely inappropriate? The statement does not go to when the Prime Minister was personally aware of these circumstances, and I ask him to advise the House.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I answered this question yesterday—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and I referred to my answer just a moment ago. I will answer this very precisely. The state of Senator Cormann's mind and his knowledge is set out in his statement to the Senate, and I refer the honourable member to that. The fact that there was an issue relating to Senator Day's office was drawn to the attention of my chief of staff by Senator Ryan on 18 August, as set out in his statement. My chief of staff was asked by Senator Ryan, if Senator Day sought to raise the matter with him or my office, to refer them to him—to Senator Ryan. Senator Ryan passed on the substance of that conversation to me shortly thereafter, some days thereafter, and that was the beginning of my awareness that there was any issue about Senator Day's office. In terms of details about the matter, they were first drawn to my attention on 4 October in a meeting that Senator Ryan refers to in some detail in his statement.