Face of Nation : Labor and crossbench senators want to quiz former ministers Julie Bishop and Christopher Pyne – and possibly the prime minister and his department boss – over whether ministerial standards have been breached.
The Senate on Monday agreed to an inquiry, initiated by Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick and reporting back on September 10, into whether Ms Bishop’s and Mr Pyne’s post-parliament roles are in line with rules for ex-ministers.
In a report tabled in parliament on Monday, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Martin Parkinson cleared the former foreign minister and defence minister of potential misconduct over their post-politics jobs. Ms Bishop has been appointed to the board of foreign aid contractor Palladium, while Mr Pyne has a new defence-focused role with professional services giant EY.
Dr Parkinson spoke with the ex-politicians and found ministerial rules were not broken. But Labor has dug up a video message Ms Bishop made as a minister in 2017 for an aid sector conference, which Palladium posted on its Facebook page.
In it, Ms Bishop described the joint DFAT and Palladium-run Business Partnerships Platform as “our flagship program” for shared value, a business model that promotes social good. She does not mention Palladium by name.
The company also ran a column by Ms Bishop on its webpage in 2018 but notes the article was originally posted on the ANU Development Policy Centre’s blog, which allows its pieces to be republished elsewhere. Dr Parkinson says Ms Bishop assured him she would comply with the ministerial standards.
“Ms Bishop indicated to me that she did not have any contact with Palladium in the five years that she was Minister for Foreign Affairs,” he wrote in his report to Mr Morrison.”Moreover, Ms Bishop has not been a minister for almost 12 months – a period in which certain elements of the aid program have been re-cast.”
The former minister also told him she anticipated Palladium’s focus to be on projects in the US and UK, and that the company didn’t expect her to engage on Australian-based projects. Mr Morrison said he had no reason to doubt the findings of his department head.
