A NSW minister has accused the opposition of launching a “baseless sexist attack” on whether her marriage to a senior insurance lobbyist constitutes a potential conflict of interest.
During budget estimates on Thursday, Finance Minister Courtney Houssos was peppered with questions over her 15-year marriage to George Houssos, who is the senior manager of government and stakeholder relations at the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA).
Liberal MP Damien Tudehope raised questions over whether this was a conflict of interest – which the minister adamantly denied – due to Ms Houssos’ responsibilities over the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA).
Ms Houssos was given ministerial oversight for the regulator on May 3 before it was stripped from her portfolio in October and given to Better Regulation Minister Anoulack Chanthivong.
However, persistent questioning, despite objections from Labor members on the committee, resulted in Ms Houssos accusing Mr Tudehope of “mansplaining,” and launching a “baseless sexist attack on working women”.
“I’m going to call this out for what it is … This is a smear on my professional relationship, on my professional reputation and on my husband’s professional reputation,” she said.
“There is no allegation of wrongdoing … You (Mr Tudehope) might come from a different time but most families work today, both partners work.”
Ms Houssos added her and her husband have made “no secret” of their long marriage and said Mr Houssos had “voluntarily stopped working with the NSW government” once she was sworn in as minister.
“Mr Tudehope, you have failed both the reasonable test, and the fairness test, and this is just a baseless, sexist attack on working women,” she said.
“You want me to remove myself from my role because of my husband.”
Mr Tudehope maintained his questions were valid.
“Do you accept that there could be a perceived contract conflict of interest if you are making insurance decisions, good decisions in your portfolio, which relate to the Insurance Council of Australia for whom your husband works?” he asked.
Previously, Premier Chris Minns said his decision to reallocate Ms Houssos’ responsibilities was to protect her against attacks from the opposition and not due to any concrete concerns.
“Lawful decisions she would have made would have been criticised by you (the opposition),” he said during budget estimates last Tuesday.
“You would have drawn unfair inferences about her conflicts of interest with malevolent intent.”