Libs say Speaker has expense questions

SPEAKER Bronwyn Bishop chartered a helicopter for the 100km trip from Melbourne to Geelong at taxpayer expense previous year for a Liberal Party event at a golf club.

Mrs Bishop bowed to pressure on Thursday and decided to reimburse the $5227.27 she claimed for a November flight from Melbourne to the Clifton Springs Golf Club. Earlier, Treasurer Joe Hockey said he did not believe the expense claim passed the “sniff test”.

JAKE STURMER: Mrs Bishop has just released a statement maintaining her belief that the travel was within the rules.

The Department of Finance guidelines say charter transport can be approved by the Special Minister of State “where no scheduled commercial services exist or a senator or member would be unduly delayed by the use of scheduled services”.

Bronwyn Bishop should explain her use of a charter chopper to attend a fundraiser, Joe Hockey says. This included $88,000 for a 16-day trip to Italy, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland for her unsuccessful campaigned to win the presidency of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an global organisation headquartered in Geneva.

But Labor will pursue the matter, with shadow minister Tony Burke challenging Mrs Bishop to produce a copy of the form she signed confirming the helicopter was for official parliamentary business.

The office holder must certify that “knowingly giving false or misleading information is a serious offence under the Criminal Code Act 1995” and that they “travelled on the charter and it was provided for official purposes”.

Mr Hockey said the claim was “not a good look” in the midst of federal budget troubles, and Ms Bishop should “explain how the money was spent”. “This seems a curious decision which is not only prohibitively expensive, but also inefficient”, Mr Conroy said. He further said that the “shameful” way that the Speaker funded her trip and the manner in which she behaved towards the Parliament at the time of questioning, show the arrogance of the Tony Abbott Government.

Bishop will also pay a 25% loading under rules introduced by this government for when entitlements have been wrongly claimed.

Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne said the Speaker was doing a “superb job” and had his full support.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten described the trip, taken the day after Mrs Bishop had attended the Melbourne Cup in November previous year, as the most egregious and silly abuses of parliamentary entitlements.

In a media conference on Thursday morning, Shorten argued Bishop should repay the funds and face a prime ministerial rebuke.