this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
39 points (95.3% liked)

Australian News

551 readers
61 users here now

A place to share and discuss news relating to Australia and Australians.

Rules
  1. Follow the aussie.zone rules
  2. Keep discussions civil and respectful
  3. Exclude profanity from post titles
  4. Exclude excessive profanity from comments
  5. Satire is allowed, however post titles must be prefixed with [satire]
Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Banner: ABC

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 2 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

People might be surprised at how much it costs to move our politicians around the country. That said, 76 flights in 15 months at an average of $1k a pop does indeed sound excessive. And that was up to July - before all the Voice stuff took off.

Her predecessor, Sam McMahon, was frequently parliament’s biggest spender on travel and accommodation. But not even McMahon, who racked up about $18,000 worth of airline bills in her last nine months as a senator (the only data still publicly available) flew at the rate Price did.

That gives us a baseline to compare. Sam McMahon spent about $2k a month on flights and was about the biggest spender on travel. Jacinta Price is spending about $5,100 a month. It's probably worth putting a cap on politician travel allowances. I'm doubtful that all of those 76 flights were strictly necessary. But I'm not too scandalised at this point.

Bronwyn Bishop spent $5k on a single chartered helicopter to fly her 80km after all (she had to pay that back after a few eyebrows were raised).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Considering they're based in Alice Springs and it's 76 flights for work and campaigning, that's actually a really good deal. I fly a lot for work and it gets expensive really fast when booking flights a day out or having to cover a bunch of rural areas, not just the main cities. Not to mention getting in and out of Canberra is some times double Sydney.