Missed a chance with the thread title… “Bronnie gets the Slipper”
Italy and Spain were the favoured destinations of Tony Burke when he embarked on a ministerial travel extravaganza that included first-class flights with senior staffer Skye Laris, who is now his partner.
Mr Burke’s expense claims show that in 2008-09 he racked up $225,000 in overseas travel costs. The Australian understands he was accompanied on most of these trips by Ms Laris.
In January 2009, Mr Burke travelled with Ms Laris in his role as agriculture minister to attend a forum in Barcelona known as “Food Security for All”.
The two travelled in the first-class cabin while senior departmental advisers flew business class.
Mr Burke’s expenses for this six-day trip were $48,951.
Shortly afterwards, Mr Burke promoted Ms Laris from adviser to chief of staff and stipulated that she accompany him on all of his domestic and overseas trips.
coalition wastes taxpayers money paying staff to troll football message boards
coalition wastes taxpayers money paying staff to troll football message boards
hahaha -
$5000 helicopter flight used by a 72yo woman = public hanging.
$225000 expenses bill incurred by Labor minister to pay for first class trips to Europe with his mistress = Nothing to see here. Move along please.
And the tit-for-tat continues: Christopher Pyne the latest to defend business class for the family to see him at work. We’re not getting anywhere here.
And the tit-for-tat continues: Christopher Pyne the latest to defend business class for the family to see him at work. We're not getting anywhere here.
The 3 parties and independents should make a deal.
Bishop resigns (done), Burke resigns and one of SHY, Ludlum or Lambie goes as apparently all 3 of them have also had their snouts in the trough.
Then everyone can get back to business as usual.
To be honest I think its all petty nonsense in the grand scheme of things but it sells media. However Labor and Burke opened this can of worms and now they must start dealing with consequences.
coalition wastes taxpayers money paying staff to troll football message boardshahaha -
$5000 helicopter flight used by a 72yo woman = public hanging.
$225000 expenses bill incurred by Labor minister to pay for first class trips to Europe with his mistress = Nothing to see here. Move along please.
co-alition staff member takes sign of people’s disinterest in his message as request for him to double down on party assigned talking points.
coalition wastes taxpayers money paying staff to troll football message boardshahaha -
$5000 helicopter flight used by a 72yo woman = public hanging.
$225000 expenses bill incurred by Labor minister to pay for first class trips to Europe with his mistress = Nothing to see here. Move along please.co-alition staff member takes sign of people’s disinterest in his message as request for him to double down on party assigned talking points.
Umm - just because a poster might support some Coalition policy or policies does not mean they are therefore a Coalition staff member.
I hope you are not so disconnected from the real world that you still can’t understand that the majority of Australians actually elected the Coalition last time around.
No. But you are.coalition wastes taxpayers money paying staff to troll football message boardshahaha -
$5000 helicopter flight used by a 72yo woman = public hanging.
$225000 expenses bill incurred by Labor minister to pay for first class trips to Europe with his mistress = Nothing to see here. Move along please.co-alition staff member takes sign of people’s disinterest in his message as request for him to double down on party assigned talking points.
Umm - just because a poster might support some Coalition policy or policies does not mean they are therefore a Coalition staff member.
I hope you are not so disconnected from the real world that you still can’t understand that the majority of Australians actually elected the Coalition last time around.
Mr Ludlum.
$11000 on a nasty carbon emitting chartered plane !!!
And your purpose was to meet staff that work for a company that you want to shut down. I bet they were pleased to see you.
WA Greens senator Scott Ludlam spent $11,136 chartering a flight at taxpayers’ expense to get to Wiluna where he attended an anti-nuclear protest.But the party’s co-deputy leader defended the cost, saying the main purpose of his three-day visit in August 2011 was to meet staff of uranium miner Toro Energy and inspect the company’s proposed mine nearby.
The Greens’ anti-nuclear spokesman also met residents and traditional owners opposed to the project.
As a WA senator, Senator Ludlam has a $26,490 a year allowance to book charter transport, including flights.
His return flight between Kalgoorlie and Wiluna coincided with the start of the Walkatjurra Walkabout when about 100 protesters marched from Wiluna to Kalgoorlie and then to Perth to demand an end to uranium mining.
“We will not rest until this industry finally has been closed down,” he told Parliament after the visit.
Senator Ludlam toldThe West Australian the cost was quoted on a competitive basis and no commercial flights fitted the schedule.
“I wouldn’t really characterise the purpose of the trip as a protest, more as a site visit with Toro staff and a series of meetings … with local people,” he said.
He said rather than dealing with regional issues from Fremantle, site visits, including to far-flung areas, were essential.
WA Greens MLC Robin Chapple, a staff member, a journalist, a conservationist, a lawyer and a hydrologist flew with him, but were not asked to pay.
Tony Abbott’s costly Indigenous community “volunteering”
Martin Hodgson 14 August 2013, 6:51pm Indigenous AustraliaPolitics Share on facebook 2.7K Share on twitter 617 Share on linkedin ? Share on reddit ? Share on google_plusone_share Share on email More Sharing Services(Image by John Graham)
Tony Abbott claims to be a friend of Indigenous Australians, regularly spending time in their communities “volunteering”. Martin Hodgson puts to rest this enormously expensive lie.BY NOW, we’ve all heard it.
As soon as criticism of the LNP’s policies on Indigenous Affairs (or lack thereof) are raised, the default position of LNP members, journalists and the apologists of it in action is rolled out.
Tony Abbott volunteers in Indigenous communities, so we are told.
He goes for a week a year and these statements of “fact” are usually then followed by a barrage of holier than thou tripe about how much Mr Abbott could teach the rest of us…
So sure of this position ‒ so much has it become the accepted reality ‒ that statements from the LNP and journalists come to us on this subject with gay abandon.
Take Christopher Pyne on Monday’s ABC Q&A program, for instance:
“We know that Tony Abbott works in Indigenous communities at least a week or two a year, and he has said that if he is elected Prime Minister that he will continue to do that and that he will take senior bureaucrats with him. He has done that in Cape York…”
We know this, do we? This just goes completely unchallenged and is gospel truth, is it?Well, here is what I know:
In August 2012, Tony Abbott did indeed go to Cape York — but it wasn’t for a week or two as Mr Pyne suggests.
It was for 2 days.
It was a working bee of sorts and some of Australia’s business leaders were taken along to volunteer as well. Photos of Abbott with tools in hand were taken and the myth of Abbott the saviour of the Black man had a wonderful photo op.
No problem so far — until you examine the Expenditure on Entitlements paid by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to Mr Abbott for this “Volunteering” trip. On page 12, we find an amount of $9,636.36 taxpayer dollars, spent to fund the hire of a private charter flight for the 2 days.
CharterFlight
(Click on image to see full document in PDF)
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I volunteer to hammer in a few nails for a day or two I don’t ask the people of Australia to cough up 10 grand. That isn’t volunteering — that is the most expensive labourer in the history of Australia. I wonder what the sandwiches cost?
So, was this just a once off? Nope. Not on your life!
On another one of his trips to an Indigenous Community in 2010, Mr Abbott was off to sell his version of the Wild Rivers Legislation to the traditional owners it would impact. Not quite volunteering, as such — but policy is good and spending time in Indigenous communities is to be encouraged if it results in consultation that means that locals get their message across, resulting in positive policy changes.
So, just how much did Mr Abbott listen to the local people of the Indigenous community he visited? How much was this reflected in his policy? Because hey, we know ‒ or are told ‒ he has the ear of the Black man…
Murandoo Yanner
From The Courier-Mail (11/11/10):‘‘We do not support his shonky Bill,’’ said activist Murrando Yanner of the Carpentaria Land Council. ‘‘We think it is badly drafted and legally unenforceable.’’
…
‘‘He will leave unhappy,’’ said Mr Yanner, who supports the existing Wild River legislation. ‘‘His new Bill is a dog’s breakfast.’’
Well, that didn’t go to plan. It was neither volunteering nor listening to the locals.No harm in trying, I suppose, and if you spent the week out in the community helping, it has some purpose, but little use if the status quo is maintained and you ignore the wishes of the people you supposedly assist.
Well, there is some harm and it wasn’t for a week.
The harm comes in the form of another private charter flight — cost to the tax payer: $32,545.00. Because nothing says I volunteer to help those in need like a $30k ride in a jet. Oh … and that week or two Pyne talks about? That trip that cost we, the taxpayer, $32,545.00 in flights alone was for just one night!
CharterFlight2010
(Click on image to see full document in PDF)
So, when weeks are days and days cost tens of thousands of dollars and volunteering is photo ops and not listening to the traditional owners of the land, you have to rename these volunteering trips. Maybe to Tony Abbott’s very expensive, taxpayer funded, private jet flown, not listening tours of outback Australia.
Next time an LNP member or journalist drops the “Abbott volunteers for weeks in Indigenous communities” line, call bullshit! And then refer them to these figures. Three days and nearly $45,000 in flights alone — if that’s volunteering, the rest of us are really doing it all wrong.
Many of us, some one million odd Australians, do volunteer every year for community organisations; they slog their guts out, donate large amounts of money and never even ask for a thank you.
The audacity of this public lie should be even more shocking when we remember that Indigenous life expectancy is at third world levels and Mr Abbott is racking up huge bills to do nothing about it while claiming credit for work he simply doesn’t do.
AbbottPoster
This story was originally published on Martin Hodgson’s blog 1deadlynation.wordpress.com and has been republished with permission.
They’re all at it.
How do you propose people get to these outback communities to volunteer?
Walk???
He’s not using the money to go on a holiday or take his mistress somewhere. And as for people disagreeing with him, well this is the real world not ABC/Fairfax/GetUp world where everyone agrees with each other.
I’d also be interested to know if KRudd’s visits to Afghanistan would fall in the same bucket?
coalition wastes taxpayers money paying staff to troll football message boardshahaha -
$5000 helicopter flight used by a 72yo woman = public hanging.
$225000 expenses bill incurred by Labor minister to pay for first class trips to Europe with his mistress = Nothing to see here. Move along please.co-alition staff member takes sign of people’s disinterest in his message as request for him to double down on party assigned talking points.
Umm - just because a poster might support some Coalition policy or policies does not mean they are therefore a Coalition staff member.
I hope you are not so disconnected from the real world that you still can’t understand that the majority of Australians actually elected the Coalition last time around.
Co-alition staffer angry that partisan response to corruption in politics is not interesting to people living in the real world.
How do you propose people get to these outback communities to volunteer? Walk????He’s not using the money to go on a holiday or take his mistress somewhere. And as for people disagreeing with him, well this is the real world not ABC/Fairfax/GetUp world where everyone agrees with each other.
I’d also be interested to know if KRudd’s visits to Afghanistan would fall in the same bucket?
Coalition staffer telling people in the real world that the real world is what the coalition staff say the real world is.
By the way Henry, those figures are nonsense as they are for a 6 month period.
Hence, why even the ABC didn’t take up the story.
By the way Henry, those figures are nonsense as they are for a 6 month period. Hence, why even the ABC didn't take up the story.http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/parliamentarians-reporting/docs/P31/ABBOTT_Tony.pdf
Coalition staffer has media team research substantive response which he provides 11 minutes after initial response with no supporting article.
LOL - if you want to prefer a blog post over an actual finance report then so be it.
How do you propose people get to these outback communities to volunteer? Walk????He’s not using the money to go on a holiday or take his mistress somewhere. And as for people disagreeing with him, well this is the real world not ABC/Fairfax/GetUp world where everyone agrees with each other.
I’d also be interested to know if KRudd’s visits to Afghanistan would fall in the same bucket?
LOL