Well, that was pretty much expected: Health Minister Sussan Ley has resigned amid the travel entitlements scandal.
Addressing media Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that Ley had made “an appropriate decision” and one that was in “the best interests of the government.”
Ley stood aside from her role as Health Minister earlier this week, after it came to light that she’d bought a $795k Gold Coast investment property while on a taxpayer-funded work trip.
At the time, she insisted she had done nothing wrong (although promised to pay back some of the costs of the trip) and expected to be returning to work soon. Turnbull wouldn’t elaborate on what had changed between Monday and now.
It’s not just Ley who’ve had her ministerial expenses scrutinised this week. It’s also come to light that several fellow MPs have been making claims that seem extremely out-of-touch with the Australian public: Julie Bishop slugged taxpayers $2,716 to attend the Portsea Polo, Matthias Corman and Steve Ciabo charged taxpayers a combined $2,500 to attend the 2013 AFL Grand Final, and Peter Dutton cost taxpayers a frankly insane $4000 for a “working dinner” in the US.
And to that end, Turnbull also announced a bloody huge entitlements shake-up.
The government has plans to establish an independent and transparent authority to oversee ministerial expenses, taking the entire task out of government hands altogether.
“Australians are entitled to expect that politicians spend taxpayers money carefully,” said Turnbull. “We should be as careful and as accountable with taxpayer’s money as we possibly can be. We should we’re spending it with more care and more attention than we would spend our own money.”
He repeatedly stressed the need to make expenses as transparent as possible, promising that the new system will provide monthly, easily accessible (read: searchable) expense reports in a system modelled after the one in the UK.
Turnbull degenerated the current system – where politicians currently have to fill in expense reports by hand – as “absolutely antiquated”.
Meanwhile, Arthur Sinodinos will continue to look after Ley’s portfolios, with cabinet positions being announced next week.
Photo: ABC News 24.
