Labor MP David Smith say inquiry into ministerial standards inquiry should cover consequences

Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick has called for the inquiry, and it is expected Labor will back the move, subjecting both Pyne's role and the ministerial standards more generally to intense scrutiny.

Under the ministerial standards an outgoing minister should not take on a lobbying role or a job where they benefit from their ministerial experience for 18 months after leaving parliament.

It's unclear whether the proposed inquiry would be wide enough to also consider former foreign minister Julie Bishop's role on the board at Palladium, which Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong says doesn't pass the pub test.

"On the face of it, it looks like another breach of the ministerial standards," Senator Wong said on Tuesday.

Mr Smith, now member for Bean after moving from the Senate, said Mr Pyne's new job raised issues of trust with the electorate.

"There's a real issue around perceptions of conflicts of interest and genuine conflicts of interest," he said.

"The issue is always if a former minister or former secretary of a department, where they potentially had access to privileged information on their portfolio then working in that space, whether it's defence or infrastructure."

Mr Smith said the inquiry should look at how the code of conduct for ministers was enforced, pointing out the lack of power the Prime Minister had over ministers that have moved on. He said a legislative instrument was needed and didn't rule out the need for criminal consequences if it was breached.

"You'd be able to look at a range of things. We're talking generally about people who leave with fairly generous super packages so they still have an income that comes from Australian taxpayers. That's something you'd want to look at, and other systems used by other democracies, and would it be a civil or a criminal consequence?"

Mr Smith said politicians were well paid, have a generous superannuation scheme and in cases like Mr Pyne's, leave with generous pensions. At similarly senior roles in the private sector, executive contracts often include non-compete clauses limiting their activities after they leave their roles.

"We don't sign employment contracts, there isn't actually an employment contract. Our contract is with the Australian people."

In a statement published on Twitter, Mr Pyne defended his new job, saying he was confident he was abiding by the ministerial standards.

"I have not taken personal advantage of information I received as a minister in the Defence portfolio that is not otherwise publicly available," he said.

While Mr Pyne's new role consulting for EY on defence matters has garnered publicity, he is not the first to be questioned about the speed with which he has taken up a role in the private sector related to his ministry.

Former trade minister Andrew Robb took on a lucrative consultancy role with Chinese-government aligned company Landbridge after leaving parliament, where he had had carriage of the free trade deal between Australia and China.