Mr ABBOTT (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs)(11.24 a.m.) —I take up the member's point about skillshare. The government has a great deal of respect for the skillshare sector and my understanding is that negotiations are taking place between the skillshare sector and the department on the sorts of transitional issues that he raised.

I want to go back briefly to the question raised by the member for Banks (Mr Melham) and the role of my former adviser. My former adviser left me on Friday 9 May and the following Monday he appeared as the chief adviser to the member for Oxley (Ms Hanson). I have to say that I regarded that as an act of treachery. I regarded that as an act of betrayal of me, of the local Liberal Party which gave him an enormous amount of support as the preselected candidate for Manly, and of a great many citizens of Manly who had reposed their trust and confidence in him.

Mr Martin Ferguson —Was he in your faction?

Mr ABBOTT —As a matter of fact, if we had factions in the Liberal Party—and we do not—he would have been in the other faction. It was, if you like, as a way of handing an olive branch to others that he entered my office.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hollis) —Order! The parliamentary secretary will be heard in silence.

Mr ABBOTT —After he left my employ, I asked for a check to be made of his mobile phone calls. It became apparent that he had made dozens of phone calls on a departmental mobile phone, going back to late last year, to the member for Oxley and to David Ettridge. Obviously, these had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his duties as my staff member. They had absolutely nothing to do with his role in helping to liaise between the department and me. I wrote two letters to the departmental secretary seeking the investigation of those phone calls and seeking the recovery of any costs that were incurred that were not properly attributable to his work for me. I believe that those investigations are continuing.

Not long after he left my office, I was contacted by David Thomas, a former employee of the member for Oxley, who let me know that while my former staffer was employed by me he had attended some functions which again had absolutely nothing to do with his employment by me or his work in liaising with the department, but had everything to do with the moonlighting he had been doing for the member for Oxley.

I have also written to the Department of Administrative Services seeking an investigation of one trip and one section of another trip, because again I am absolutely determined to ensure that no costs will be incurred by the taxpayers for activities which helped to enable my former staffer to assist the member for Oxley.

Obviously, the behaviour of my former staffer is hugely embarrassing for me and for the local Liberal Party, but it is also a real problem for the member for Oxley. The member for Oxley has taken onto her staff someone with so little sense of propriety, someone with so little sense of discretion about the use of government resources that he was prepared to use those government resources quite freely in ways which had nothing to do with his work for me as the member for Warringah, nothing to do with his work for the electors of Warringah, and nothing whatsoever to do with his work for the department.

In fact, information provided by David Thomas suggests that not only did he do this when he was working for me but now that he is working for the member for Oxley, even though he is employed by her in her capacity as an independent member of parliament, he is working full-time on the establishment of the One Nation Party. This strikes me as being at odds with the spirit, if not the letter, of the provisions under which independent members get an extra staff entitlement.

There are some very serious issues for the member for Oxley here. She preaches restraint in the use of government funds, but it is hard to see that it is being practised. So far, the member for Oxley, as an independent, looks to resemble Senator Colston more than she does Ted Mack.