Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. How is it that on his watch, in the middle of the worst recession in almost a century, with one million Australians unemployed, businesses collapsing and a trillion dollars of Liberal debt, this government is taking no action against the Liberal-appointed Australia Post board, which spent $12,000 of taxpayers' money on Cartier watches?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The accusation that the Leader of the Opposition just levelled against the government is false. Earlier today, when this was brought to my attention by the report of Senate estimates, I was appalled. It's disgraceful and it's not on. And so immediately I spoke with the shareholding minister, the Minister for Finance, and the minister responsible, the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, and from those discussions the following actions ensued: that there had to be an independent investigation done by the department, not by Australia Post; that the chief executive should stand aside immediately; and that the independent investigation should look into the conduct of the board members and their governance as well as the actions of the management and the executive. That report will come back to me and the members of my cabinet, and if there are issues to be addressed with board members then they will be addressed then.

This all happened within an hour. So appalled and shocked was I by that behaviour—any shareholder would in a company raise their outrage if they had seen that conduct by a chief executive, a management or a board; they would insist rightly on the same thing. Now, we are the shareholders of Australia Post on behalf of the Australian people, so that action was immediate. The chief executive has been instructed to stand aside and, if she doesn't wish to do that, she can go.