Our attempts to clarify dealings between Greensill Capital and the government have been consistently frustrated, including by the Prime Minister who has refused to answer Senate questions reasoning it would be an “unnecessary diversion of resources”.

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It’s worth noting that the treasurer, attorney-general, finance, home affairs, industry and foreign affairs ministers all had the resources to answer the same questions, so why can’t the Prime Minister?

We have submitted numerous Freedom of Information requests, all of which have been denied, provided only with vague and obstructionist excuses explaining how strenuous it would be for his department to produce documents and logs of correspondence.

Witness before the current Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) oversight into supply chain financing, know who the central characters are in this story, even if coalition members don’t want to admit it.

The two supply chain finance companies that gave evidence last week, Octet and Fifo Capital, made it abundantly clear why they thought they were there defending their lending practice.

Octet referred to Greensill Capital 14 times in its submission, while Fifo named the company 19 times in theirs.

Labor believes the committee must call Greensill Capital representatives including the company’s high-profile lobbyist, Bishop, for obvious reasons.

And the committee does have the power to compel the attendance of both.

This same committee back in 2018 employed the assistance of then Attorney-General Christian Porter to compel the attendance of the CEO of Retail Food Group to be grilled about a conflict of interest.

But that CEO wasn’t a former coalition colleague.

It has been reported that coalition members of the committee blocked any examination of Greensill Capital or Bishop’s lobbying on its behalf saying it would happen over their “dead body”.

The UK moved quickly; its conservative government held several substantial parliamentary inquiries trying to understand Greensill Capital’s practice of lending against future invoices, something which Octet CEO Clive Isenberg said financing future invoices was “high risk.”

And what that inquiry discovered was extremely troubling.

The German regulator, BaFin, recently filed a criminal complaint against Greensill Capital.

The Australian parliament needs to hear from Greensill Capital and Bishop so it can truly understand how an Australian company was able to provide such a predatory product - with the help of a former deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

Ed Husic is the shadow minister for industry and innovation.

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