ICYMI, Barnaby Joyce pulled a Bronny Bishop yesterday: he got busted taking helicopters when he maybe possibly shouldn’t have been.
The chopper flights to a tiny little town in NSW called Drake cost around $4000 each, and many of us lowly citizens aren’t so stoked.
His most recent flight, which cost $3836.25, was to visit launch a mobile phone tower, visit a blueberry farm, and inspect a local bridge in need of replacement. He also flew to Drake last June, which cost $4166, to visit the Jubullum Aboriginal community, the local primary school and attend to politics in the pub at the Lunatic Hotel.
But he ain’t sorry – he says he saved 5 hours of travel, and the cost of the flights was well within his $21,160 charter allowance he’s entitled to as the member for a regional electorate of 25,000 – 99,999 square km.
“The charter allowance is not a bottomless pit and the decision to travel to Drake by helicopter to fulfil commitments that day was regarded as sufficiently important to spend this portion of the allowance.There is no airstrip at Drake, which made the helicopter flight the preferred transport.I do not apologise for using my allowance to service my electorate and I do not apologise for using local businesses to do so.”
His trip was literally just two days after the government released its review into politicians’ entitlements. It called for clear guidelines, so the “use of charter transport must constitute value for money, and in particular that, in the absence of compelling reasons, helicopters cannot be chartered to cover short distances”.
Source: The Australian.
Photo: Stefan Postles / Getty.
