The Abbott government is facing more scrutiny over travel entitlements, with fresh documents revealing Education Minister Christopher Pyne and his wife had a taxpayer-funded $30,000 trip to London and Rome in April. The trip included taxpayers being billed $1352 for Mr Pyne to day let a room at a swish London hotel before he and his wife, Carolyn, flew back to Australia later that day, and more than $2000 for VIP services at Heathrow Airport. Under the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinets travel guidelines, ministers spouses are not normally allowed to go on trips and are only entitled to if they have an invitation from a foreign government or host organisation and an official program of events separate to that of the minister. It is not sufficient to include the spouse in the ministers existing program of meetings. The travel must be justified and defensible, the guidelines state. The Department of Education has revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request that it has no documents showing a foreign government invitation for Mrs Pyne nor an official program of events for her. But documents published by the Finance Department show Prime Minister Tony Abbotts chief of staff Peta Credlin approved Mrs Pynes travel because of the significant representational aspect of the travel. Read more: theage.au/federal-politics/political-news/questions-arise-over-christopher-pynes-taxpayerfunded-trip-with-his-wife-to-london-and-rome-20140922-10k6zr.html
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 04:35:53 +0000
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