Thursday 7 March 2013

Is Opposition Leader Tony Abbott being a little too cute on his Statement of Registerable Interests?


I did not mishear, in an ABC News interview aired on 3 March 2013, Margie Abbott quite clearly stated that she was the owner of a small business.

Elsewhere she has said:


Margie also styles herself as Director, SIOC (St. Ives Occasional Care Incorporated which may have been previously trading as Ku-ring-gai Community Childrens Centre Inc). She is apparently the sole director.

Yet her husband coyly declares to the Australian Parliament in his last Statement of Registrable Interests that she is employed, rather than more accurately stating that she is self-employed or the director of an incorporated business.



As anyone who works for a wage (with no equity in the business which employs them) can tell you - there is a wealth of difference between those three terms. Ranging from income, autonomy and security of tenure through to flexibility in work conditions.

As a sole trader, using her maiden name, Margie Abbott was also active in business between June 2001 and March 2003.

Given Mr. Abbott has a propensity to misrepresent his wife's interests, I have to wonder how he as both MP and Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business described her time as a sole trader to the Australian Parliament then.

2 comments:

sue said...

Was the interview with Lyndal Curtis in the Charity bike ride, 3/3/13? If so it is no where on the internet or in ABC video interviews.
An important issue any way, as Abbott acknowledges Margie in his policy of nannies. Alos Therese Rein had to dispose of Australian interests so no conflict of interest. Are the Abbott's being dishonest or protective?

clarencegirl said...

Sue,

News broadcasts don't always make it online and from memory it was a news broadcast I referred to.

As for dishonest or protective?

Persistently misrepresenting the name of the WA gold mining, oil and gas exploration corporation your wife has shares in, does rather worry as it obscures the family's pecuniary interests.