For readers following on from this morning, you’d know a cache of leaked emails revealed how Coalition MP Stuart Robert had been secretly providing advice to a firm that helps big companies win lucrative government contracts.

Now, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has asked the heads of Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency to “immediately and thoroughly” investigate contracts awarded to companies named in this masthead’s report on secret advice provided by a Liberal MP to a lobbyist.

Speaking about reports in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers during question time in parliament, Shorten said Stuart Robert used his status as a federal MP in 2017 and 2018 to help the lobbying and consulting firm Synergy 360, “to help them sign up corporate clients with the promise of helping them navigate the federal public service and political system and meet key decision makers including senior coalition ministers.”

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“Specifically, it was reported that emails reveal that Synergy 360 would frequently update corporate clients as to the progress and lobbying and providing access to senior government officials for the allocating and rewarding of several multimillion-dollar contracts,” Shorten said.

“This morning, I have asked the CEO of Services Australia, and the CEO of the National Disability Insurance Agency to immediately and thoroughly investigate any of the contracts awarded to these companies and individuals named in these reports, to assure me and the Australian people that the process was entirely above board and appropriate.”

Shorten said the government believed the job of the MP was to work for their constituents, “not your former business partners.”

“When there’s career lobbying as revealed by the emails, companies are required to be on the lobbyist register. This is not an option ... If and when public office has been used to enrich private mates it’s corruption,” he said.