Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Once again I must stress that I or the government cannot have knowledge about the advice provided to a previous minister in a previous government from a different side of politics. I am advised though that the issue here arose because of staff turnover in this particular area, so that corporate knowledge—and I have no knowledge of what was provided to the previous government—may have been lost to the department. In this government for this minister the issue first came to departmental officials' attention just before Christmas and the minister was only formally briefed that there was an issue on 19 January 2016.