Business the tonic for a post-politics Christopher Pyne

The fixer is back. Christopher Pyne has hit the launch button on his new venture, Pyne and Partners.

Christopher Pyne sucks on a lemon at the launch of his new business venture at the 2KW bar in Adelaide on Wednesday. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

The fixer is back. Having pulled the pin on his 26-year parliamentary career at the May election, Christopher Pyne has hit the launch button on his new venture, Pyne and Partners, with an ­exclusive party at Adelaide’s ritzy 2KW rooftop bar.

For a man whose political ­career started amid scandal with his ousting of the genial Fraser government minister Ian Wilson as the member for Sturt in 1993, it seems fitting Mr Pyne’s push into the world of corporate issues management has also invited ­outrage.

The former defence minister is having none of it, defiantly toasting his new enterprise with a gin and tonic — a sly nod to his valedictory speech where he revealed the hardships in Adelaide’s leafy eastern suburbs were such he once had to retrieve his own lemon while making a cocktail.

Mr Pyne has been targeted by the opposition and Senate crossbenchers over the potential conflicts of interest in him working for businesses seeking defence contracts. With typical chutzpah, Mr Pyne told The Australian ahead of Wednesday night’s launch the campaign against him had “no basis in fact” and he was adhering to the ministerial code of conduct by neither lobbying government nor divulging information he garnered as a minister.

“I’m not greedy and I wouldn’t do anything to mess this up,” Mr Pyne told The Australian.

“Just accusing me of breaching something does not make it fact.”

Mr Pyne said he had “never” been an employee of consulting giant EY, which was the basis on which he was referred to a Senate hearing, with the outgoing head of Prime Minister and Cabinet Martin Parkinson clearing him of any wrongdoing but opposition MPs pushing for more detail.

Mr Pyne told The Australian EY was a client of his company but he was not doing any lobbying or advocacy work on its behalf to government.

“We don’t do any lobbying for EY. None. We provide strategic advice to them behind the scenes about the defence industry, as ­opposed to government,” he said.

“I don’t work on the government side of the business, I work on the private side of the business. That’s the way it always was. I was never an employee of EY. At no point. There is no smoking gun.”

Mr Pyne insisted he had been completely scrupulous in adhering to the ministerial code of conduct and said Pyne and Partners, and its parent company GC Consulting, which will continue to operate with an international focus, had a diverse list of clients that had nothing to do with defence.

He said two of the businesses he had been targeted over — Sabre Astronautics and Ethan Group — were a space company and an IT company, not defence businesses, and the Pyne and Partners’ client list included businesses from health, property, agriculture, construction and private equity.

“The two limbs of the ministerial code of conduct are that you can’t lobby the minister or anyone in your former portfolio, any staff or the department for 18 months after you retire,” Mr Pyne said.

“That’s verboten. I haven’t contacted anyone in defence to lobby on behalf of anyone since I retired. That’s easy. You just can’t contact them.

“The second limb is you can’t rely for commercial gain on any information that was unique to you as the minister for defence. Well, that’s just common sense.

“Things I found out as minister I can’t talk to my clients about. But all the publicly available documents, like the naval shipbuilding plan or the defence white paper, they’re in the public domain. Business apparently finds it valuable to have what the government was saying in those publicly released reports interpreted.

“I would never talk to any of my clients about, say, the sustainment and maintenance of the Collins-class submarines but if people ask me ‘what did the government mean by ‘X’ in the naval shipbuilding plan’, that’s fine.”

Mr Pyne referred to his new company as a “small but perfectly formed team” comprising himself as chairman, his former chief of staff Adam Howard as managing director and former political staffer Cristian De Julio as associate.

Last night’s guest list was a who’s who of SA’s Liberal moderate MPs, led by Mr Pyne’s friend, Premier Steven Marshall. Veteran Liberals Michael Photios and Michael Kroger also flew in from Sydney and Melbourne. Also attending were property ­tycoon Michael Hickinbotham and Adelaide Football Club chairman Rob Chapman.

Rather than opting for a ­quieter life post-politics, Mr Pyne is ­establishing himself as one of the most connected, high-profile corporate players in the City of Churches.

He has launched his own podcast series — interviewing Malcolm Turnbull last week.