A sharp-eyed Twitter user spotted this in parliament's Register of Pecunairy Interests [PDF, p. 7]:
Yes, that company second from the bottom is the Australian numpties responsible for the Novopay clusterfuck. And Banks, BTW, is Associate Education Minister.
Banks only re-entered Parliament in 2011, and the Novopay disaster goes back a lot further than that. At the same time, this is a serious conflict of interest and someone should be conducting some pretty heavy scrutiny on whether he has said anything at all about it to the Ministry or his fellow Ministers since then. And even if he has not, it is unseemly for him to hold an education portfolio while also being a director major shareholder of a major contractor. Either he needs to give up his position, or divest himself immediately.
[Hat-tip: @Dovil]
Update: It seems that Banks divested himself earlier this year when Talent2 de-listed from the Australian stock exchange. He claims that
He has never received any government information or briefings regarding Talent2 (or any company they are connected to), or participated in any discussions at either Cabinet or Cabinet Committee.
Of course, he was quite happy to leave this major breach of ethics unaddressed for six months, and its likely he would still have a shareholding today if it wasn't for the company's appalling performance in Australia.
