In news that feels astonishing even to me, a hardened cynic resigned to my inevitable lifelong poverty, it has emerged that Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley bought a $795,000 investment property on the Gold Coast while visiting on a work trip. She says the purchase was “was not planned nor anticipated.” Okay????
The mid-2015 trip, which Ley has insisted was for “official business“, took Ley and her husband first to Brisbane Hospital, where she announced $1.3 billion in funding to list new medicines and vaccines. They then headed to Main Beach on the GC, 80km from Brissie. There, I guess, while gazing up through their opera glasses at the high-rises sparkling beyond their open sunroof, they spotted the apartment and exclaimed to one another, “How charming! Darling, we must have it!“
All up, Ley claimed $3,949 in flights for the trip. Her office has denied any wrongdoing on her behalf, saying that “all travel undertaken was in accordance with the rules.” Apparently, she was on the Coast in order to “meet with stakeholders.” Her office has declined to disclose whether or not the apartment is negatively geared.
All this comes after reports emerged that Ley had spent $12,000 chartering a private jet to take her to a meeting on the Gold Coast last year. She does know that the “Gold” part of the place’s name is a moniker, not a spending requirement, yeah?
But it must be hard to be one of these people, don’t you reckon? Buying an “oopsie” apartment worth nearly a million dollarydoos on a cheeky business trip hooky break, lying about on yachts and complaining about poor people wanting penalty rates for their weekend dirt farming, feeling totally justified in demanding thousands of dollars of dodgy debt repayments from single mothers and people with disabilities – can you imagine?
Really tough shit.
Source: Herald Sun.
Image: Thomas Kurmeler / Getty.
