A Turnbull government cabinet minister has been caught out failing to declare her financial interests properly, potentially placing her in "serious contempt" of Federal Parliament.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash did not declare a mortgage on a $1.4 million investment property for almost four months - and finally made the disclosure only after questions from Fairfax Media.
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Turnbull defends Michaelia Cash
He's 'disappointed', but the PM is backing his Employment Minister despite her failure to declare an investment property.
Senator Cash bought the house next door to her home in the upmarket Perth suburb of Floreat on November 4, property records show.
It's the fourth house in her portfolio, and the second investment property. Senator Cash took almost three months to declare the house but then did not declare the new mortgage - both of which are required under the rules.
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Asked about the potential oversight on February 20, Senator Cash's office declined to comment.
But disclosures released on Monday reveal she quietly added the Bankwest mortgage to her register on February 21.
Under the rules, any senator who knowingly fails to notify of any alteration to their interests within 35 days "shall be guilty of serious contempt of the Senate and shall be dealt with by the Senate accordingly".
From the purchase date, Senator Cash took 78 days to declare the house and 109 days to declare the mortgage.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Senator Cash had apologised to him about the disclosure delay but insisted given the property's settlement date had been on December 9 she was not too long overdue.
"I have spoken to Michaelia and she's mortified and obviously I'm disappointed that she missed the deadline," he told 3AW.
"The public hold us to very high standards and we have to comply with them. She is a very hard working, punctilious minister. She's had an oversight here, she's very sorry about it and I've accepted her apology."
During last year's election campaign, Labor frontbencher David Feeney was slammed for failing to declare a $2.3 million negatively geared home. He later conceded it was the "biggest own goal" of the campaign.
And in 2010, then-opposition leader Tony Abbott was criticised when it was revealed he had failed to declare a $700,000 mortgage he took out on his Sydney home two years earlier.
Assistant Health Minister David Gillespie has also pledged to review his entire register of interests after he was caught out declaring an interest in a company that was deregistered two years earlier.
In his latest register, assembled after the election last year, Dr Gillespie declared a major financial stake in Port Macquarie Gastroenterology - even though the company was shuttered two years earlier.
Dr Gillespie conceded he was careless, saying he thought the company had been put into a freeze when it had in fact been closed down.
"It was an oversight," he told Fairfax Media. "It's my fault, I should have been more inquisitive."
Fairfax Media has sought fresh comment from Senator Cash.
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