Former MP Bruce Billson failed to reveal new job while in parliament

A former MP has conceded he didn’t disclose that he had taken up a new job months before leaving parliament.

Former Liberal MP Bruce Billson during his valedictory speech. Picture: Kym Smith

Former Liberal cabinet minister Bruce Billson has been caught out for not disclosing a separate income while he was still a federal MP, after he took a job with a small business group months before last year’s July 2 federal election.

Mr Billson — who held the Victorian seat of Dunkley after being elected in 1996 — confirmed to The Australian this evening that he accepted a position on the board of the Franchise Council of Australia in early March 2016 and began to receive a $75,000 salary.

He took up the position several months after he was dumped from cabinet as small business minister following the September 2015 leadership coup, when Malcolm Turnbull successfully challenged Tony Abbott for the leadership of the party.

Mr Billson said his decision to accept the job was well known at the time, but acknowledged he had committed a “discourtesy” to the parliament by failing to disclose the position before the parliament was dissolved.

“As can be seen from the publicly available records, I have regularly and routinely updated my interests and declarations every few months over my twenty years of public service. And that has been my habit and my routine,” Mr Billson said.

“In this event, the election was called prior to that happening, and that does represent a discourtesy from me towards the parliament.”

While Mr Billson apologised for the failure to disclose the appointment, he rejected as “malicious” any suggestions that his decision to take up the job represented a conflict of interest with the Coalition’s promotion of a key workplace relations bill.

While the FCA has campaigned against aspects of the government’s “Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill” -- which would change the Fair Work Act to make franchisors responsible for underpayments by their franchisees — Mr Billson said the legislation hadn’t even been devised at the time of his departure from parliament.

Mr Bilson took aim at a story which featured on the ABC’s 7:30 program tonight, saying that “any suggestion” by the national broadcaster that he was “lobbying on behalf of the FCA about the joint employer liability legislation is completely baseless.”

“The legislation hadn’t been foreshadowed let alone revealed by the Coalition until well into the election campaign which was well after my time as a member of parliament had expired,” Mr Billson said.

“Shabby efforts to suggest my oversight in not providing notification to the parliament (of the FCA job), and to infer it is inappropriate to advocate on behalf of the half a million people whose livelihoods depend on franchising is simply malicious.”

The government’s Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill would strengthen the powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman to ensure that the exploitation of vulnerable workers could be more effectively investigated with the government’s overhaul yet to pass the Senate.

The shake-up to workplace laws are devised in response to a number of formal inquiries which uncovered evidence pointing towards the systematic underpayment of migrant workers including at 7-Eleven outlets.