It wasn’t that long ago that Australia was being praised around the world. Remember when we had an intelligent, articulate, diplomatic leader with a vision for the future?
We survived the GFC with Wayne Swan being awarded the world’s best Treasurer by the magazine Euromoney “for his careful stewardship of Australia’s finances and economic performance, both during and since the global financial crisis”.
Julia Gillard led the way in action on climate change by introducing a price on carbon prompting praise from around the world.
“Australia will create tens of thousands of clean jobs in the coming years. You will save billions by eliminating wasteful energy usage, money that can be directed to other pressing social and infrastructure demands.
Australia will be helping lead the world out of this crisis, sending a powerful message that, yes, it can be done. Despite all the barriers, despite all the bitter, misleading opposition, Australia is leading the world toward a brighter, more sustainable future.”
In April last year, Julia Gillard also displayed her diplomatic skills in China.
“TEN foreign leaders visited China this week but only Julia Gillard scored what could turn out to be the deal of the decade. The Prime Minister’s coup in striking a “strategic partnership” and securing annual talks with China’s leaders will be her foreign policy legacy. It guarantees Australia access to the growing superpower at the highest levels and is being hailed by some as one of the most significant breakthroughs since Gough Whitlam’s courageous step 40 years ago to establish diplomatic links with China.
The China deal locks in formal annual talks between Australia’s PM and the Chinese Premier, as well as meetings for Australia’s foreign affairs minister, treasurer and trade minister with their counterparts.”
I could go on listing the previous government’s achievements – introducing our first paid parental leave scheme, environmental protections with water trigger and Murray-Darling buyback and marine parks, the NDIS, the NBN, education funding – the list is long and visionary.
But for some unfathomable reason, the majority of Australians were convinced that Abbott could do a better job. We could blame the media (and I do) but in reality, it is us who are to blame for our unquestioning acceptance of the lies we were being told. It is our own fault that we have moved from a position of world admiration for a responsible egalitarian society to one where we are being lampooned internationally and well and truly screwed domestically.
The Coalition began by stating we didn’t need Indonesia’s permission for our asylum seeker policy, a statement which infuriated them. We then had the odious Mark Textor suggesting that Indonesia’s foreign minister looked like a 70’s porn star, and the revelation that we spied on the President’s wife – something for which Abbott was incapable of saying sorry. We also violated their sovereign waters because apparently our Navy can’t tell where they are. We have been vilified for setting people adrift in life rafts, and censured for presumptuous plans to collect intelligence in Indonesian villages and to buy their fishing fleet.
We insulted the Prime Minister of PNG by suggesting he had lied, and then confiscated documents from the lawyer representing Timor l’Este in the International Court where we stand accused of bugging their Parliament to gain trade advantages for private firms. Abbott also had to “offer an act of contrition” to Malaysia for his previous comments about their human rights record.
Abbott offended war veterans and their families by praising the “honour” of the Japanese who attacked us, while Julie Bishop infuriated China by calling in their ambassador to berate him for the dispute over islands in the East China Sea prompting this response in the Chinese version of the Global Times:
“China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs doesn’t even have the tools to deal with this kind of ‘complete fool’ of a foreign minister.”
When Tony Abbott rushed to condemn the Russians in the hours after the downing of the plane in the Ukraine, he incurred the wrath of both China and Russia.
The official Xinhua news agency said in an English-language commentary that officials from the United States, Australia and other Western countries had jumped to conclusions in pointing their fingers at the rebels in eastern Ukraine and for blaming Russia for the escalating violence.
“The accusation was apparently rash when the officials acknowledged they did not know for the time being who is responsible for the attack, while condemning Russia’s military intervention,” Xinhua said.
“Without bothering himself about evidence and operating only on speculation, Mr T. Abbott assigned guilt,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. “Abbott’s statements are unacceptable” going on to say “Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has gone farther than others in making irresponsible innuendoes against our country even though one would think that her position presupposes building bridges between countries, not destroying them.”
In another inexplicable brain fart that even the US was quick to distance itself from, our Attorney General decided to inflame tensions by deciding that East Jerusalem would no longer be referred to as Occupied Territory. In the process, Australia was hailed by Israel’s government, scolded by a group of 57 Muslim-majority countries, and had multibillion-dollar export trades put under threat.
Along with defending the rights of bigots and then linking the backtrack in the repeal of the Racial Discrimination laws to ramped up anti-terrorist laws, Brandis and Abbott have alienated the Australian Muslim community.
And one can only wonder as to why Abbott has chosen to instruct the Scottish people on how they should vote in their upcoming referendum on independence. Their response:
“Mr Abbott’s comments are hypocritical because independence does not seem to have done Australia any harm. They are foolish, actually, because of the way he said it. To say the people of Scotland who supported independence weren’t friends of freedom or justice, I mean, the independence process is about freedom and justice.”
The first minister said Scotland’s referendum on independence was a “model of democratic conduct” and Mr Abbott’s comments were “offensive to the Scottish people”.
Whilst alienating Russia, China, Indonesia, Palestine, Scotland, Malaysia, East Timor, PNG, the Muslim community, and veterans, we have also earned ourselves the title of Colossal Fossil for our refusal to take part in global action on climate change.
Domestically the picture is even more ridiculous. We reinstate knights and dames, we defend the rights of bigots, poor people don’t drive cars, breast cancer is linked to abortion, we are “unprepared for global cooling”, and can someone please explain to Brandis and Abbott what metadata is?
The Australia Institute, in a scathing review of the Commission of Audit, asked the following questions:
As one of the richest countries in the world Australian people have the potential, when working together, to do anything they want. But, we cannot do everything we want. Australia will need to make choices and it is our choice whether we want to:
have the world’s best education and health systems or the world’s lowest taxes
continue to outspend our neighbours on defence or underspend on tackling climate change
increase the incomes of the elderly and the sick or to cut the taxes of our wealthiest residents.
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
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As Attorneys General go, one would have to concede that George Brandis is more high profile than most but a quick review of his “achievements” so far shows a sorry lack of perspective for the highest lawmaker in the land and many inconsistencies.
After his relentless pursuit of Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, an unapologetic Brandis was forced to repay $1683.06 in taxpayer-funded entitlements he claimed after attending the wedding of a close friend, shock jock Michael Smith, despite saying he did nothing wrong.
In a letter to the Department of Finance, Senator Brandis said he considered the costs were within parliamentary entitlements, “since they were incurred in the course of attendance at a function primarily for work-related purposes”.
He added: “I remain of that view.”
We then had the debacle of the Brandis library. More than $15,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent on a second custom-built bookcase to house Attorney-General George Brandis’ extensive collection of books and law reports because the one we paid $7000 for in 2010 was too big to move to his new office.
Last year Senator Brandis defended spending $13,000 on reading materials including political thriller The Marmalade Files, Best Australian Political Cartoons and Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography Hitch-22.
As Minister for the Arts, Senator Brandis said he was also the “Minister for Books”.
One of Senator Brandis’ first actions was to have the ACT gay marriage laws repealed. This was only possible because Howard changed the marriage act to define it as between a “man and a woman”.
George also embarked on a “bonfire of regulations to cut red tape”. This included earth shattering reforms likes changing the word e-mail to email and facsimile to fax and trademark to trade mark as well as repealing laws such as the one which regulates how long a senior cadet drills for.
As Minister for the Arts, Brandis expressed outrage when the Biennale of Sydney chose to reject private sponsorship from Transfield when nine artists threatened to boycott the event in protest at the sponsor’s involvement in off-shore detention centres. He sent a strongly worded letter to the Australia Council which signalled a significant shake-up of arts funding to avoid political “blackballing”, in the wake of what he described as the “shameful” decision.
“You will readily understand,” writes the minister, “that taxpayers will say to themselves: ‘If the Sydney Biennale doesn’t need Transfield’s money, why should they be asking for ours?’ ”
He directed the Australia Council to develop a policy so that it would be a condition of the receipt of Australia Council funding that the arts organisation concerned not unreasonably refuse or unreasonably terminate private sponsorship. I wonder if that means they must accept sponsorship from tobacco companies.
“Uncommitted funding to arts programs administered by the Attorney‑General’s Department will be reduced, a move that will directly affect the Australia Council and Screen Australia. Savings of A$87.1 million over four years will be achieved, with cuts to Screen Australia of A$25.1m over four years, and cuts to Australia Council of A$28.2m.
Funding for the Adelaide Festival Centre’s support for Asian cultural activities will also be ceased, with an estimated saving of A$1.8 million.”
One group who did well in the budget was the Australian Ballet School which immediately put the extra $1 million they were given towards the purchase of a $4.7 million Melbourne mansion. The fact that the wife of former Liberal Arts Minister Rod Kemp (now chairman of right-wing lobby group the Institute of Public Affairs) is on the Ballet School’s board had nothing to do with the funding announced in the budget, according to those involved.
Budget pain from Brandis was not confined to the Arts and started as soon as he got his hands on the reins.
Last year, as shadow Attorney General, George Brandis shared the stage with Mark Dreyfuss at a legal conference in Melbourne. They both agreed that improving access to justice by increasing funding for legal assistance was vital after the decimation of the Howard years.
Demand for free legal services far exceeds capacity due to chronic underfunding, a problem acknowledged by repeated government inquiries. The consequence is that many people can’t get the legal help they need for problems such as employment law, family violence, debt and tenancy issues.
Yet in his first months of office, even before the report of the Commission of Audit (let alone his government’s first budget), Brandis announced a massive cut to Commonwealth legal assistance funding. The $10m that the Gillard government had provided to bolster environment defenders’ offices, and that had already been contracted for, was stripped away through a claw-back provision that allows for funding contracts to be broken where there is a change of government policy, even though this government appears bereft of an environmental policy.
Brandis also stripped over $13m from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal assistance services, despite the unequivocal evidence of unmet legal need in Indigenous communities across Australia. Included in this was $3.6m withdrawn from Indigenous Family Violence Prevention Legal Services (IFVPLS), a particularly cruel decision given the horrific cycles of family violence gripping some Aboriginal communities.
An Aboriginal woman explained to the ABC the importance of having a culturally sensitive service.
“It meant that I didn’t need to have to explain my position as an Aboriginal woman and mother,” she said.
“It meant that I was working with Aboriginal workers as well, and it meant that when I have the service in court that they were able to speak as if I was the one that was speaking about my situation as an Aboriginal woman.”
The Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service told a recent inquiry that the vast majority of their work is in assistance for women who have had their children removed by child protection services. Such removals are causing immense pain in communities. This year, almost 14,000 Aboriginal children were in “out-of-home-care”, more than were removed at any time during the Stolen Generations. This is five times the numbers in care when the landmark Bringing Them Home report was delivered 1997, despite its warnings that the dynamics of the Stolen Generations remained present.
Australia wide, Aboriginal children are 31 times more likely to be incarcerated. But the Liberal government in Queensland is set to change legislation dealing with juvenile offenders, removing clauses citing detention as a “last resort”. Shane Duffy, the chairperson of the peak National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), has called for an urgent intervention from the UN to stop the terrible impact this will have on Aboriginal children.
But NATSILS too have just had their funding completely withdrawn, knee-capping such advocacy. Across Australia, Aboriginal legal services will have all their policy officer positions cut and are anticipating future funding agreements will prohibit them advocating publicly around the issues affecting their people.
An independent economic cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the National Association of Community Legal Centres highlights the economic case for properly funded legal services. The analysis showed that every dollar spent by government on community legal centres returned, on average, $18 in economic benefit to society.
At the same time, he found more than $2m to give to those who are opposing native title claims.
He also made the inexplicable decision to appoint Tim Wilson, a man with no qualifications or experience and who did not have to go through an application or interview process, as Human Rights Commissioner drawing a salary of $389,000 a year. To accommodate this act of nepotism, Brandis sacked Graeme Ennis, the Commissioner for the Disabled who has spent many years in tireless advocacy and who is responsible for many of the reforms that have allowed our disabled to live with dignity.
Wilson’s whole raison d’etre was to champion the repeal of the ‘Bolt laws’, which now renders him pointless as Tony has decided to drop the whole affair after enormous public and internal backlash.
Senator Brandis is stirring up hornets’ nests internationally too.
First there was his inept handling of the ASIO raids on East Timor’s Australian based lawyer. He proudly announced these raids by press release, only to discover that he had touched off an international incident that would embarrass Australian internationally and land us in the international court of justice – this time as a defendant accused of breaching due process and the national sovereignty of our poor neighbour.
Then there was the astonishing argument over whether East Jerusalem should be referred to as “Occupied” or “disputed”. This was sparked when Senator Lee Rhiannon asked why the Australian ambassador met with the Israeli housing minister in Occupied East Jerusalem. Brandis, rather than answering, refused to countenance the word “occupied”.
Rhiannon: “You do not use the term ‘occupied’ even though it is a United Nations term used widely by a number of international agencies like the European Union etc?”
Brandis: “It is used by a lot of people. It is used by a lot of communists too. Weren’t you a member of the Communist Party once?…….The point I made, is that the Australian government does not refer to East Jerusalem by the descriptor ‘occupied East Jerusalem’. We speak of East Jerusalem.”
The timing of this for the Peter Greste case was diabolical.
After his infamous speech in defence of bigots where Senator Brandis protected their right to be offensive, I was rather surprised to hear that George has accused Fairfax Media of publishing anti-Semitic coverage of the Middle East, and denounced a cartoon in The Sydney Morning Herald depicting a Jewish man with an exaggerated nose as comparable to propaganda from Nazi Germany.
Asked if the cartoon amounted to racial vilification and could encourage or incite others to hate Jews, Senator Brandis said: “It certainly constitutes a racial form of stereotyping. I think The Sydney Morning Herald and Fairfax Media in general ought to be very careful about the almost overtly anti-Semitic tone some of their commentary, including their editorial cartoon, have adopted.”
But stereotyping people of Aboriginal descent is just fine apparently, as are front pages depicting MPs as fascists.
And now we will spend $630 million on the new proposed anti-terrorism laws which will compel telcos to keep our long term metadata and will broaden powers to detain people with the onus on them to prove their innocence.
We can actually thank them, along with Brandis’ bigot speech and the 5000 responses it prompted, for the dropping of the Section 18c changes. The Prime Minister’s view was that the overwhelmingly negative feedback about the changes, combined with the proposed anti-terror laws, meant the government could no longer keep Muslims offside.
When Brandis should have been vocal, there was “craven silence from the Australian government about the grave constitutional crisis in Nauru, where the chief justice and resident magistrate have been illegally deposed by the government.”
Likewise, he has been silent on the assault on our civil liberties imposed by Queensland’s draconian anti-bikie laws.
Perhaps some of George’s problems stem from his statement “when I want to know what’s going on in politics, I turn to Fox News, not the ABC.”
The Abbott Government have celebrated their first 100 days and awarded themselves a tick in every box. Everything they have done has been handled efficiently, smoothly, swiftly and professionally. That is, of course, if you listen to the Government’s own glowing but exaggerated assessment.
Thanks to Michael Trembath, here is a link to the articles that provide us with the real story of the Abbott Government’s first 100 days. Satirically sub-titled ‘Delivering on our Plan‘ it delivers an absolute mockery of the claim that the Government has done just that. Our thanks go to Michael for giving The AIMN permission to reproduce his compelling list.
Here is Michael’s fact-finding assessment and evidence of the first real 100 days of the Abbott Government:
Immigration Minister accuses media of ‘misrepresentation’ and claims that they “never had a policy of towing boats back to Indonesia” despite on occasions, the then Opposition Leader suggested he would bring the policy back
The Immigration Minister said that for the sake of correcting the public record … two (boats) were accepted and two were not. The Jakarta Post reported on Saturday that Agus Barnas, spokesman for the Indonesian co-ordinating minister for Legal, Political and Security Affairs, said his country had declined to receive three out of six Australian requests for transfers since September.
The Australian Greens’ Order for Production of Documents passes the Senate and forces the Coalition to table reports about on-water incidents under Operation Sovereign Borders.
Immigration Minister refuses to tell Parliament whether any asylum-seeker boats have been turned back to Indonesia – a Coalition election policy – prompting ridicule from Labor He acknowledges a Senate motion calling him to release reports on asylum-seeker arrival
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has announced the creation of a new taskforce to stamp out corruption in the Customs and Border Protection Service: which will identify officers or groups who pose a risk to the service, as well as their outside criminal associations
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison on a profoundly disabled four-year-old Tamil asylum seeker in a Brisbane detention facility who will be transferred offshore along with her father: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a child, it doesn’t matter whether you’re pregnant, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a woman, it doesn’t matter if you’re an unaccompanied minor, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a health condition – if you are fit enough to get on a boat, then you can expect you’re fit enough to end up in offshore processing.”
A delegation of Russian politicians was in Indonesia to discuss the Australian phone tapping revelations, while giving “permission” from Moscow to Indonesian MPs to meet with former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who lives under temporary protection there.
Demonstrators in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta have burnt an Australian flag in protest over the alleged tapping as anti-Australian sentiment continues to escalate.
Indonesians express Aussie hatred with hashtag #GanyangAustralia which means ‘Crush Australia’
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison refuses to reveal what anti-people smuggling activities have been shelved in Indonesia as a result of the spying scandal
The Abbott government was rebuked by Japan and New Zealand for ditching Australia’s commitment to monitor closely its catch (the lion’s share of a global catch split between nine nations) of the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna. Parliamentary secretary to the Agriculture Minister Richard Colbeck has shelved the proposal, claiming its $600,000 cost was unwarranted in an industry worth $150 million a year in exports.
Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan has confirmed that the dispute with Australia over spying allegations has accelerated his country’s desire to source beef from other countries.
Australia faces strained diplomatic ties on a new front after China lashed out at comments from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and called for an immediate correction. But Abbott says Australia will speak its mind on China’s territorial dispute with Japan
Abbott arrived noticeably late to the first session of the APEC leaders meeting in Bali. Mr Putin being less than pleased and ignored Mr Abbott’s presence when he finally turned up to be seated next to him
The National Commission of Audit will report to the Prime Minister, Treasurer and Minister for Finance with the first phase due by the end of January 2014; and the second phase due by no later than the end of March 2014
Members of the team hand-picked by the Abbott government to lead the commission of audit will be paid $1500 a day: more than what a family received through the scrapped Schoolkids Bonus each year.
The NDIS will not be exempt from its commission of audit and may allow the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) to contract out some administrative functions to the private and not-for-profit sectors
Debt
Treasurer Joe Hockey wants to cut waste by hiring expert external consultants to repeat an audit of Treasury forecasts which was done 10 months ago by expert external consultants
Treasurer considers delaying mid-year budget to “avoid hurting confidence”
Concedes that it will have to boost its own spending (and debt levels) if it is to get a rapid injection of funds into infrastructure projects, overlooking spending on programs such as welfare and education
Transport unions warn thousands of Qantas maintenance, catering and other support staff could be sacked and their jobs sent offshore if restrictions on the foreign ownership of the national carrier are lifted
The Attorney-General reinforces NBN ban on Huawei, a blow to the world’s biggest manufacturer of telco equipment and could strain ties between Australia and the Chinese government, which are negotiating a free-trade agreement that Abbott wants signed within a year
Shares fell for the sixth day in a row as offshore investors trimmed their Australian equity portfolios ahead of expectations a depreciating local currency will eat into their profits, the longest losing streak in 17 months for shares
The Treasurer is determined that his senior public servants spend more time in the ‘real world’, with executives, bankers, bond traders and corporate investors by decentralising Treasury. Shifting parts of Treasury out of Canberra – last done in the early 1990s but reversed in the late 1990s to save money
Abbott will be unable to abolish the fixed price on carbon pollution before 2015 unless he goes to a double-dissolution election, before July 2014
Clive Palmer is threatening to block all the Abbott government’s legislation – even measures he supports such as scrapping the carbon price – unless his party gets more staff and resources
Early repeal of carbon price scheme could cost $2 billion
Boost productivity, reduce regulation and create jobs
Abbott is asking childcare providers to “do the right thing” and hand back $62.5 million given to them to improve wages in the poorly paid sector
Increasing costs
The Education Minister floats the possibility of privatising $23 billion of HECS student debt Which when done in the UK, investment bank Rothschild had pushed for students’ interest rates to be raised
Considering changes to lower the GST threshold on imported goods from $1000 to $20, raising more than $550 million per year in extra revenue at the cost of $1.5 billion per year in administration costs
NBN Co’s interim satellites are reaching full capacity and the government-owned company has started turning away new customers in rural Victoria. These customers must rely on existing broadband infrastructure until NBN Co launches two custom-made satellites in 2015.
The shadow minister for communications, Jason Clare, calls on the Government to fully disclose the contents of the NBN Strategic Review.
The Abbott government expects to make less money from the NBN because of slower speeds available under the Coalition’s copper-based network, a Senate committee has heard. ABC link
The Coalition’s national broadband network model will prove inadequate for many businesses, is poorly planned and is unlikely to be completed on time, according to NBN Co’s internal analysis for the incoming Abbott government.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull admitted the Abbott government will break its NBN election promise of giving all Australians access to 25 megabits per second download speeds by 2016
Handing over $1.5 billion in federal funding for the east-west link without seeing the full business case, despite an election promise that any investment of more than $100 million would require a published cost benefit analysis.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull rings the ABC boss Mark Scott to tell him he had made an “error of judgment” in teaming with the Guardian to run revelations that the Indonesian president’s phone was bugged
Senator Cory Bernardi declares that ABC’s funding should be cut and the national broadcaster forced to sell advertising and paid subscriptions online to compete with commercial newspapers
WA’s Young Liberals will call for the federal Liberal government to “eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be `balanced'”.
Visits to www.schoolfunding.gov.au are redirected to the departmental website of Education minister Christopher Pyne, where there is no mention of the word “Gonski” at all, let alone a copy of the report or its 7000 submissions.
“He’ll repeal parts of the Racial Discrimination Act making it dangerous to ask why some people identify as exclusively Aboriginal – and deserving of special treatment – when all but one of their great grandparents were white.”
Abbott forms the Prime Minister’s indigenous council to provide advice on Aboriginal economic reform by recuiting powerful business and indigenous figures
Aiming to review $25 billion spent on indigenous affairs – “If there’s no economy and there’s no job there we need to think about other options that will move people to productive engagement.”
The Community Cabinet, the Major Cities Unit, the Social Inclusion Unit, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Australian National Preventative Health Agency, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the National Health Performance Authority, the Independent Reviewer of Adverse Security Assessments, the Australian Research Council, the embassy in Senegal, the national Children’s Commissioner and the Human Rights Commission all facing cuts or abolition.
Funding for the Alcohol and other Drugs Council (ADCA), the national peak body representing organisations and workers in the sector, has been axed, undermining years of work to minimise alcohol and other drug-related harm across the Australian community Forcing the immediate closure of the 50-year-old organisation.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt won’t attend annual United Nations climate change talks in Warsaw, saying he’ll be busy repealing the carbon tax in the first fortnight of parliament
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has rejected a proposal from the 53-nation Commonwealth to establish a new fund to help poor and island countries to combat climate change.
Prosecuting conservation groups who seek boycotts of products alleged poor environmental practices Greens blast Coalition proposal
Taxpayers would be stung with a $150 million penalty if it broke the fifteen-year lease Labor signed to house the Department of Climate Change in the six-star energy efficient “Nishi” building in New Acton
Deliver strong, sustainable and accountable government
Silence echoes across Canberra as the Coalition clams up: Since winning office, Abbott has fronted the nation’s media just eight times (in two months). Calls to his office, and to his ministers, frequently go unanswered or unreturned. (Includes list of roadblocks)
Abbott quietly repays $609 in taxpayer-funded entitlements he claimed to attend the 2006 wedding of one-time colleague Peter Slipper, who is now facing charges for alleged expenses rorts Link to a comprehensive list of travel allowances claimed by Abbott totalling $84k in 3 years
Defence Department records revealed that senior figures in the Abbott government were among those who enjoyed free travel on VIP military aircraft to fly to Canberra for parliamentary sitting weeks, amassing a taxpayer bill of more than $2 million
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has been busted for a third time using taxpayer funds to attend a wedding, repaying more than $300 claimed on ComCars to attend a journalist friend’s wedding five years ago
Foreign Minister warns Australians travelling overseas they need to take responsibility for their own actions and can’t count on the federal government to bail them out if they get into trouble
