Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the video of a Brisbane 7-Eleven employee being forced to return half her wages to her employer in cash. As a result of this cashback scam, staff are paid $11 an hour below the minimum wage. Given the Prime Minister's own ministerial standards requires ministers to act with the highest standards of integrity, how can the Prime Minister possibly justify his ongoing holdings in managed funds that invest in 7-Eleven?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Members on my right. The member for Wakefield will cease interjecting.

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

As honourable members are aware, my and my wife's investments are managed for us by an external adviser. They are invested almost entirely—for the most part in any event—in large managed funds, typically index funds, exchange traded funds, that have a wide range of investments. Typically, very similar to the large superannuation funds that many other members, including members opposite, have their funds invested in.

What I would suggest to the honourable member is that he now scour through the large portfolios of all the managed funds that are opposite. But the point of the matter is that I do not choose the stocks those funds invest in. I am completely transparent. They are there, and the allocation of the funds is a matter for my adviser. So it is kept very much at arms-length from me. It is thoroughly transparent and at arm's length.