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SA Labor has accused Liberal leader Steven Marshall of failing to publicly disclose his significant shareholdings in the major banks during his months leading the charge against the Weatherill Government's doomed bank tax.
But the claim fell flat when it emerged Mr Marshall had met all parliamentary disclosure rules, and the Premier failing to answer whether his own ministers with bank shareholdings had met the Ministerial Code of Conduct by absenting themselves from cabinet deliberations on the new tax.
The Premier's office provided documents outlining Mr Marshall's shareholdings just minutes before Jay Weatherill conducted a press conference.
The documents show the Opposition Leader, his parents and sister are directors of a company called Next Australia Pty Ltd. According to the documents, the company owns almost 32,000 Westpac shares and 14,250 ANZ shares.
Mr Weatherill later seemed unwilling to take up the charge against Mr Marshall — saying the Opposition Leader had "questions to answer" but declining to say what those questions were.
"Ultimately it's a matter for Steven Marshall to answer these questions, not for me," he said.
Mr Marshall said he had complied with his parliamentary disclosure obligations, with Next Australia listed on the members' register of interests.
"I've declared all my shareholdings. It's in my register of interests," he said.
"I'm not even aware of what the shareholding of the family superannuation trust is.
"The fact of the matter is the Premier, every cabinet minister, probably every person in the Parliament has shares in banks via their superannuation."
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis acknowledged Mr Marshall had not breached disclosure rules, but he said voters deserved to know Mr Marshall was a shareholder in the major banks at the time he was voting against the introduction of a new levy on their deposits.
"Mr Marshall was arguing that voting for the bank levy would lower dividends and share price without telling everyone he was a major shareholder," Mr Koutsantonis said.
"These things pay dividends of over $60,000 a year.
"Does he really expect ordinary mums and dads to believe that he didn't know he owned $1.3 million worth of bank shares?"
SA Best leader Nick Xenophon accused Labor of negative politics.
"I don't think anyone could accuse Steven Marshall and I of being the best of friends at the moment," he said.
"But I think it's fair to say that if he's disclosed his interest as I understand he has, then that settles the matter.
"I think people are switched off by this sort of negative politics."
The Premier said Labor MPs who own bank shares did not have any conflict of interest during the bank tax debate, because all voted in favour of the new levy.
However, he refused to say whether any ministers declared a conflict of interest while discussing the imposition of the levy around the cabinet table.
"I'm not disclosing what occurs within cabinet," Mr Weatherill told reporters.
"You've seen what members of Parliament did on the floor of the South Australian chamber."
The Ministerial Code of Conduct requires actual, potential or apparent conflicts of interest be disclosed to the Premier in writing.
"A minister must not participate in any deliberations on a matter in respect of which a conflict of interest has validly been disclosed by that Minister and must withdraw from the Cabinet room during those deliberations," the code states.
Topics: states-and-territories, elections, government-and-politics, banking, state-parliament, adelaide-5000, sa