Christopher Pyne and Tony Burke's travel scrutinised as review team named
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Version 0 of 1. Further revelations over politicians’ travel claims are emerging as the Coalition names former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson and the former Labor Speaker Harry Jenkins as part of the team undertaking a review of parliamentarians’ entitlements. The education minister, Christopher Pyne, is under pressure after reports he spent $5,000 of taxpayers’ money flying himself, his wife and two of his children to Sydney around the a 2009 Christmas-New Year holiday period. Department of Finance documents show each flight from Adelaide and back cost $1,200 and he claimed two nights travelling allowance of $238. During the period Pyne also spent $711 on Comcars. Related: Politicians’ entitlements and expenses: help investigate four years of data But his office told the Australian the then shadow education minister held a planning day with the opposition leader Tony Abbott while in Sydney. “Neither Mr Pyne nor his family have ever seen the New Year’s Eve Sydney fireworks,” it said. Pyne’s travel has been questioned during an ongoing row over parliamentarian’s entitlements. Labor frontbencher Tony Burke is also in the spotlight after claiming business class travel for his family to Uluru in 2012. The then environment minister also spent $16,000 using one of the prime minister’s jets for three days in 2010, including for so called “ghost flights” when no one was on board. Burke had the RAAF Challenger travel empty to pick him up from Hobart, before taking him to Newcastle, Dubbo and then back to Sydney for a series of meetings, News Corp reports. It then returned empty to its base in Canberra, but Burke’s office said he had no option but to travel on the government jet because his meetings did not align with commercial flights. Burke has also been singled out earlier in the week over a $48,951 six-day trip to Barcelona for a food security conference in January 2009. The Australian newspaper reported Burke and an adviser – who is now his partner – travelled first-class for the trip. When asked on Friday whether the trip met community expectations, the prime minister did not mention Burke. “I want root-and-branch reform so that the latest round of controversies are the last,” Abbott said. Pyne, the leader of the house, used a television interview on Friday to defend Burke, the manager of opposition business. “All the stories about Tony Burke, so far none of them have been in breach of the rules,” Pyne told Nine’s Today program. “If the rules are the rules and people stay within them, you can’t then criticise them, so let’s have a proper, full discussion about it rather than taking pot shots at each other.” Pyne defended his own decision to charge taxpayers thousands of dollars to fly his family business class from Adelaide to Canberra in late 2013 because it was “within the rules”. “That’s right, for the opening of parliament – because I’m the leader of the house, I’m a new cabinet minister, it is the opening of parliament, my four children joined me in Canberra,” he said. The Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese, who was also part of the Today show discussion, said it was “fantastic” Pyne’s children were able to see the swearing in. Related: Politicians’ expenses post-Bronwyn Bishop: four reforms gaining traction “Those kids are not going see their dad this morning,” Albanese said. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said he had confidence in Burke, who had acted within the rules and had assured Shorten “that at all times he’d been carrying out his job as a minister when the overseas matters were dealt with or arose”. Meanwhile, Liberal MP Mal Brough has taken it upon himself to publish his travel expenses on his website. The former minister on Saturday refused to judge any of his colleagues for their expenses. “I just want the people that have the opportunity to elect me to make that judgment call for themselves, with the facts about what myself and my family do,” he told Channel Seven. The root-and-branch review of expenses was triggered by the resignation of Bronwyn Bishop, after she came under weeks of sustained media pressure for a series of expenses claims including $5,227 for return chartered helicopter flights from Melbourne to Geelong to attend a Liberal fundraiser. Tony Abbott said he hoped the review would bring about an end to expenses-related controversies and allow “the public to have confidence that members of parliament are working very hard for them”. The government finalised the five-person review panel on Friday. The prime minister has previously said the exercise would be led by David Tune, the former secretary of the Department of Finance, and John Conde, the chair of the remuneration tribunal. But the newly announced members include Nelson, who served as defence minister in the Howard government and opposition leader after the Liberal party’s 2007 election loss, and Jenkins, who was Speaker from 2008 until 2011 when Labor replaced him with Peter Slipper. The final member is Linda Nicholls, the chair of Yarra Trams and a director of Medibank Private, Sigma Pharmaceutical Group and Fairfax Media. The government said the review team had a deadline of the first half of 2016 and would examine the parliamentary expenses framework and options to move to a simpler, transparent and more independent system. • Australian Associated Press contributed to this report |