Joe Hockey has called on Bronwyn Bishop to explain why she spent more than $5,000 of taxpayers’ money to charter a helicopter to attend a Liberal party fundraiser in late 2014.
Asked on Macquarie Radio on Thursday if the Speaker’s expenses passed the “sniff test”, the treasurer answered: “Instinctively, it doesn’t.”
“Well, it’s not a good look,” Hockey said. “I think the Speaker needs to explain the matter. I think she’s already put out a statement on some of the allegations made.”
He said he “understands” the public anger levelled at Bishop.
“The court of the people will make a decision,” he said. But he said Bishop needed to be given a chance to explain herself.
Expenses forms showed the Speaker spent $5,277 on chartering the flight for the 200km round trip from Melbourne to Geelong in November.
Photos tweeted at the time show the Speaker arriving at the Clifton Springs golf club for the fundraiser shortly after the Victorian state election was called.
Ministerial entitlements restrict claiming back the cost of charter flights unless no commercial flights are available, and even then only in “special cases”. MPs and senators can claim travel expenses only for parliamentary, electorate or other official business.
The Hon. Bronwyn Bishop MP, ade a spectacular arrival at Clifton Springs Golf Club on Wednesday November 5th. pic.twitter.com/t5Nqv53HKx
— Neil Remeeus (@NeilRemeeus) November 6, 2014
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said on Thursday he was “gobsmacked that the prime minister would think it’s acceptable to spend $5,000 of taxpayers’ money on a helicopter to a Liberal party fundraiser”.
He labelled the expenses “egregious abuses of entitlements” and “colossally arrogant”.
“We have Mrs Bishop, who thinks she is so important she can’t even be bothered getting a car between Melbourne and Geelong, a one-hour car trip; Mrs Bishop who thinks she is so important she has to use $5,000-plus of taxpayer money to get a helicopter between Melbourne and Geelong when the rest of us just simply drive,” Shorten said.
Shorten said the prime minister was to blame for appointing Bishop.
“Bronwyn Bishop was yet another captain’s call from Tony Abbott,” Shorten said. “Tony Abbott needs to come out today and say why he thinks this is an appropriate way to spend taxpayers’ money.”
Labor’s spokesman on waste, Pat Conroy, said the Speaker’s trip to Europe at a cost of $88,000, also revealed on Wednesday, was an “extravagance”.
“Families on low incomes are being slugged so Bronwyn Bishop can swan around Europe drinking champagne and eating caviar?” Conroy said. “The parliament needs to decide if it is going to put up with this.”
The social services minister, Scott Morrison, attempted to side-step several questions on the Speaker’s expensive trip during a press conference in Perth, saying only that “all members should act within the entitlements”.
Asked whether Bishop should pay back the money, he said members should make their own judgments on what “appropriate next step to take”.
The Greens senator Lee Rhiannon said she would write to the auditor general, Grant Hehir, to ask him to investigate the expenses.
“It would be appropriate for Ms Bishop to immediately pay back the $5,000 if she did bill the taxpayer for a charter flight in order to attend a political party fundraiser,” Rhiannon said. “Ms Bishop’s charter flight is yet another political scandal involving entitlements and shows the urgent need for entitlements reform.”
Guardian Australia has contacted Bishop’s office to check if the Speaker had any parliamentary or electorate business in Geelong on the day she chartered the helicopter.
On Wednesday, a spokesman defended the expenses. “All charter used by the Speaker is done in accordance with the guidelines and within entitlement,” he said.
“The Speaker had a number of meetings during her visit to Victoria and always seeks to fit in as many meetings and events into her schedule as is possible,” the spokesman told News Corp publications on Wednesday. “It [is] because of her concern for the country, she works as hard as she can and wishes she could do even more.”
Bishop’s expenses declaration brings up other question, including the $357 in travel allowance that she claimed on 1 August 2014, the same day she attended a Liberal party fundraiser dinner in Nelson Bay, north of Newcastle.
Labor has consistently raised objections about Bishop’s credentials as Speaker, saying she has not lived up to the expectation that the position should be impartial.
But shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said that did not necessarily mean she should resign.
“I have strong views about the Speaker and her conduct in the chair, and I have consistently supported motions moved by the Labor party in relation to her rulings and indeed, one of no confidence,” Bowen told reporters on Thursday.
But he said: “I don’t think you should call for the resignation of the Speaker lightly.”
The former Speaker Peter Slipper was ordered to pay back $954 worth of expenses after a court found he had misused his Cabcharge allowance to visit Canberra wineries. In 2015, that conviction was overturned by the ACT supreme court.
Following the successful appeal, the former auditor general Ian McPhee criticised the “patchwork” of rules on MPs’ entitlements, saying the lack of transparency was “providing greater latitude to parliamentarians in their use of public money than might be expected in the public interest”.
