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Senator Michaelia Cash Failed To Declare A $1.4 Million Property

PM Malcolm Turnbull has called it an 'inadvertent oversight'.
The Federal Employment Minister missed the required declaration date by 43 days.
AFP/Getty Images
The Federal Employment Minister missed the required declaration date by 43 days.

Federal Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has been caught out failing to declare a $1.4 million investment property she agreed to purchase in November.

The West Australian senator failed to disclose the Perth property and an extra mortgage to finance it within the time restraints allowed for politicians.

Members of parliament must update their personal register of interests within 35 days of purchasing assets and can otherwise be accused of being in contempt of parliament if they knowingly fail to declare them and then punished accordingly.

Senator Cash bought the Floreat property on November 4, 2016, but her register of interests was not updated with the purchase until January 21 and the mortgage not declared until February 21, almost four months after the initial purchase agreement -- and only then after inquiries were made by Fairfax Media, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he is "disappointed" by what he described as Cash's "inadvertent oversight" but has accepted the West Australian senator's apology which left her "mortified", the ABC has reported.

"I have spoken to Michaelia and she's mortified and obviously I'm disappointed that she missed the deadline," he told Melbourne's 3AW radio station.

"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."

Turnbull said Cash missed the deadline by 8 days from the date the lease was signed.

However, from the point of purchase on November 4, Senator Cash took 78 days to disclose the property on her register of interests -- missing the required declaration date by 43 days.

Disgruntled voters took to social media on Monday to express their disappointment with the Senator.

It is not the first time a Federal politician has failed to declare financial interests in time. Labor frontbencher David Feeney was accused of being "hyercritical" after failing to declare a $2.3 million on his register of interests in mid-2016.

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