“I understood it was Julie Bishop.
“She approached the Treasurer’s office and then was directed to Treasury.”
Greensill Capital collapsed when its key insurer, Sydney-based Bond & Credit Company, pulled its cover over bonds that funded the firm’s supply-chain finance and receivables financing operations.
That caused Swiss fund managers Credit Suisse and GAM, two of the company’s biggest backers, to stop buying invoices packaged by Greensill.
Ms Quinn said she had a discussion with Ms Bishop and had been included in a teleconference with her.
“I certainly had a discussion with her about setting up a meeting.
“She was on one of the initial teleconferences that I was on.”
Agreement suspended
Ms Bishop became an adviser to Greensill Capital in late 2019, registering as a lobbyist for the company in Australia via her Adelaide-based Julie Bishop & Partners on April 14, 2020.
She suspended her consulting agreement with Greensill Capital in early March this year.
Ms Bishop was contacted for comment.
Opposition industry spokesman Ed Husic criticised Ms Bishop’s role on Wednesday.
“This is further proof the Coalition play by their own rules,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
“Julie Bishop was not registered as a lobbyist when she was clearly lobbying the government.”
The small and medium enterprise guarantee scheme was designed to support up to $40 billion in lending to businesses at the start of the pandemic, and after deadly summer bushfires in Australia late in 2019.
It was revealed in April that Mr Greensill sought to press Prime Minister Scott Morrison to use the company’s services for public service wages, in a botched message sent on WhatsApp.
The October 2019 message, praising Mr Morrison’s “inspired leadership”, went to a wrong number. First reported by The Financial Times, it played up jobs created in Queensland by the Greensill family.
He reminded the Prime Minister that he and Mr Greensill had sat together with Whyalla steelworks owner Sanjeev Gupta at an event.
Mr Greensill also highlighted his ties to former UK prime minister David Cameron. He said the company was preparing to announce a deal with the UK government “where we give all NHS employees the option to get paid every day”.
“It is something we think would be a powerful policy in Australia (and one I will carry the cost of as a gift to the nation).”
Mr Greensill met with Mr Morrison later in 2019, but the government did not take up the proposal.
In January 2020 he pitched the idea to then finance minister Mathias Cormann at a meeting with Ms Bishop at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Mr Cameron has faced a parliamentary inquiry in the UK over his involvement with Greensill.
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