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United Australia Party senator bills taxpayers for $10k Broome trip

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Dubious Travel Claims | QED

United Australia Party senator bills taxpayers for $10k Broome trip

June 2019

Former Clive Palmer senator Brian Burston charged taxpayers more than $10,000 to fly with his wife to Broome in the final days of his term, despite having already lost his Senate seat, according to The Age

Mr Burston and his wife travelled to Broome via Melbourne from their home in Newcastle on June 21, days after the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced that Mr Burston had failed to retain his NSW Senate spot.

He declared the trip was for “parliamentary duties”, and said he met with Labor senator Patrick Dodson, who lives in Broome, and examined “interests” he had in the Pilbara region. According to The Age and SMH, Senator Dodson said through a spokesman that he had no recollection of meeting Mr Burston in Broome and there was no mention of such a meeting in his diary.

Mr Burston also claimed the trip occurred before the AEC declared the Senate results, so he could have still been re-elected at the time. But that was wrong: the results were announced on June 17 and formally declared the next day. His term expired on June 30.

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The Case for a Federal ICAC

What's a rort?

Conflicts of Interest

Redirecting funding to pet hobbies; offering jobs to the boys without a proper tender process; secretly bankrolling candidates in elections; taking up private sector jobs in apparent breach of parliament’s code of ethics, the list goes on.

Deceptive Conduct

Claiming that greenhouse gas emissions have gone down when the facts clearly show otherwise; breaking the law on responding to FoI requests; reneging on promised legislation; claiming credit for legislation that doesn’t exist; accepting donations that breach rules. You get the drift of what behaviour this category captures.

Election Rorts

In the months before the last election, the Government spent hundreds of millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers’ money on grants for sports, community safety, rural development programs and more. Many of these grants were disproportionally awarded to marginal seats, with limited oversight and even less accountability.

Dubious Travel Claims

Ministerial business that just happens to coincide with a grand final or a concert; electorate business that must be conducted in prime tourist locations, or at the same time as party fundraisers. All above board, maybe, but does it really pass the pub test? Or does it just reinforce the fact that politicians take the public for mugs?

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