He also charged taxpayers $48,951 for a six-day trip in 2009, including first-class flights for a senior staffer, to attend a Barcelona food security forum as agriculture minister, The Australian said on Friday.
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LABOR frontbencher Tony Burke has found himself in hot water again this morning after it was revealed he used the Prime Minister’s luxury jet to attend meetings which didn’t conveniently align with commercial flights.
MR Burke has been under fire over his use of taxpayer expenses to go to Uluru with his family in 2012.
The spending habits of the Shadow Minister for Finance have come under intense scrutiny after he was a leading critic of Bronwyn Bishops’s misuse of travel entitlements which led to her stepping down as Speaker of the House.
Mr Burke has now spoken publicly about the entitlements claims, maintaining they were within the rules.
Philip Ruddock has claimed nearly $20,000 in recent years for him and his family to travel to far north Queensland, where he reportedly owns an apartment in a beachfront complex.
“Today’s [newspaper] articles explicitly acknowledge that there is no allegation that I have broken any of the rules at any point”, said Mr Burke.
“I don’t want there to be any argument whatsoever where somebody claims that I’m not willing to be held to the exact same standard as anyone else”, Mr Burke told reporters in Sydney. “There is a justifiable expectation that was unnecessary and shouldn’t have happened”.
He has asked the Finance Department to review the Central Australian trip but maintains it was “100 per cent within the rules”.
The trips to Uluru and Cairns with his family when he was environment minister involved a series of work-related meetings, he said.
However Mr Burke did agree this week to pay back $94 he claimed in travel expenses to attend a Robbie Williams concert previous year.
Even Prime Minister Tony Abbott has had to return money to the government that he claimed for travel expenses.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has backed his frontbench colleague.
THE federal government has finalised the panel, established by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, to be chaired by former Finance Department Secretary David Tune and head of the Remuneration Tribunal John Conde.
These reasonably necessary entitlements of the politicians include research support, office and staff along with travel.
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Mr Abbott said MPs had government, parliamentary and political responsibilities for which expenses were appropriate.
