Federal Labor MP Michael Danby charged taxpayers almost $15,000 for flights and other expenses linked to six trips to sunny Queensland with his wife over several years, Fairfax Media can reveal.
On three of those trips – with expenditure totalling nearly $7500 – Mr Danby conducted no parliamentary business at all but still used public money for flights, Commonwealth limousines and taxis.
The Labor MP, who holds the marginal inner-city seat of Melbourne Ports, said he reimbursed the Commonwealth last year for those three trips after auditing his own expenses.
On another three trips to the Gold Coast, which remain on the public purse, Mr Danby cited official business such as attending union functions, meeting a former Queensland Labor colleague and addressing a community group. The trips lasted four to six days, and Mr Danby paid for the accommodation and meals on all of them. Taxpayers paid for Mr Danby’s wife, lawyer Amanda Mendes Da Costa, to accompany him, which a spokesman said was in accordance with the rules.
Read the full article by Michael Koziol at the Sydney Morning Herald.