Labor Dunstan MP Cressida O’Hanlon accused in parliament of ‘bid to enrich family business via government links’

SA’s newest state MP inappropriately used her government links to “enrich” the defence company her Labor Party member husband owns, parliament has heard.

Cressida O'Hanlon, centre, with family, including husband James, left, Phoebe, 11, and Cy, 16, chatting to Premier Peter Malinauskas on Dunstan by-election poll day in March. Picture: Dean Martin

South Australia’s newest state politician inappropriately used her government links to “enrich” the defence company her Labor Party member husband owns, MPs have heard.

In an extraordinary parliamentary attack, Labor’s MP for Dunstan, Cressida O’Hanlon, 51, was accused of boosting Citadel Secure’s “interests” amid a “web of secret activity”.

Ms O’Hanlon, who has repeatedly been forced to defend her integrity, denied at the weekend the “false and defamatory” accusations.

She rejected Opposition allegations aired in parliament that she used her position to promote her husband’s business despite receiving client referrals.

Citadel Secure, which James O’Hanlon, 50, of Norwood, is a director of, faced fierce scrutiny during the bitter Dunstan by election in March before its lobbyist registration in June.

Cressida O'Hanlon with husband James at the Mid Winter Charity Ball. Picture: Facebook

The pair at the South Australian Premier's Business and Export Awards 2023 Gala Dinner, at which Citadel Secure won. Picture: LinkedIn

In a Lower House speech last Thursday, Liberal MP David Pisoni alleged Ms O’Hanlon’s “integrity … has come into question again” amid “a web of secret activity and promotion of her private business”.

Hundreds of official Freedom of Information documents, he said, revealed meetings with “copious numbers of state and federal ministers, their officers and … departments long before it registered as a lobbyist”.

This, he told parliament, prompted questions about “how deep do Citadel’s tentacles reach within the Labor government” as he alleged Ms O’Hanlon used “her position to promote her family business”.

Mr Pisoni questioned why Citadel Secure had not registered details of a new international client, which the company claimed was a global defence business linked to AUKUS.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and Labor candidate for Dunstan Cressida O'Hanlon in Norwood after she created political history with her Dunstan by-election win. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

“Labor were willing partners supporting the now member for Dunstan inappropriately using her … staff position to enrich her family business by providing direct access to government,” Mr Pisoni told MPs in the House of Assembly.

“The people of Dunstan deserve a representative in this parliament who is here for the right reasons: to pursue the interests of their community, not the interests of their family business.”

The couple would not respond outside parliament to Mr Pisoni’s “false and highly defamatory attack”.

Official documents have also revealed Ms O’Hanlon’s husband is a state Labor Party member.

The Liberals said this raised “serious questions” about transparency.

The firm, which said it was “completely compliant” with all laws, and Labor denied any party donations from Citadel Secure had occurred.

During the campaign Ms O’Hanlon, and the Labor Party, repeatedly denied she had lobbied on the firm’s behalf despite her “senior associate” listing in ministerial papers, the internet and on her LinkedIn online CV profile.

Ms O’Hanlon, a mediator who divulged her husband’s party affiliation in her parliamentary interests register, refused to comment about it as she didn’t “understand the relevance” of such questions.

In a statement outside parliament, she said in May 2023 she decided to join Citadel as a mediator after a client requested her services but a profile was created “unbeknownst to me”.

But she later ruled out being “defined as a defence industry mediator”, and kept her mediation business “including any services provided to clients referred by Citadel”.

She said it never employed her.

Ms O’Hanlon, a mother-of-four, insisted LinkedIn “had no use to me”.

“I rarely ever used it, and virtually never posted on it, hence I did not get back to update it and subsequently deleted it for this reason,” she said.

Labor had attacked her Liberal opponent Anna Finizio, 38, during the campaign over her use of the social media site.

Dr Anna Finizio at pre-polling on the final day before Dunstan by-election, 22 March 2024. Picture: Dean Martin

Dr Finizio with former Premier Steven Marshall, whose decision to quit parliament sparked the bitter by-election. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Mr O’Hanlon, a war veteran who founded the firm in 2019, said “never in my experience” had he been asked, or required, to disclose political affiliations.

In a joint statement with co-director, David Searles, 62, of Aldgate, the pair said no contract had been signed with an AUKUS-linked firm, only a non-disclosure agreement for “initial discussions”.

They added: “As such have no legal or commercial requirement to register them. They are not a client, only a prospective one, and we have never stated that they were.”

Opposition spokesman Ben Hood said: “These are serious and legitimate concerns that (Premier) Peter Malinauskas must address.”

A spokesman for Mr Malinauskas condemned “another grubby and cowardly attack under the cloak of parliamentary privilege by David Pisoni a veteran Liberal backbencher whose most recognisable achievement in public life was bringing down his own leader by sharing fake documents”.

“As we’ve seen in the last week, the South Australian Liberals will do and say anything to distract from their division, disunity and chaos,” he said.