Politician perks: MPs waste taxpayer money on useless trips overseas

EXCLUSIVE: JET-setting politicians on overseas “study ​tours’’ spent vast sums of taxpayers’ money learning that the Greek Acropolis is “breathtaking’’ and that dogs defecate in Bhutan’s street markets.

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JET-setting politicians on so-called overseas “study ​tours’’ spent vast sums of taxpayers’ money learning that the Greek Acropolis is “breathtaking’’ and that dogs defecate in Bhutan’s street markets.

Even more shocking, four backbenchers retired from politics shortly after splurging $43,688 of public money on their overseas trips.

Eighteen politicians cashed in the entitlement before its abolition in August, spending $126,519 on “study tours’’ during 2015/16, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

Taxpayers were billed $9648 for former Labor Speaker Anna Burke and a family member to take a month-long study tour of the UK, Germany and Greece — just two months before she announced plans to quit politics. Ms Burke described her trip to Cyprus as a “delightful surprise’’, and enjoyed a “breathtaking’’ visit to the Acropolis in​ ​Greece.

“Sadly, given the timing of the (Greek) ​election I could not meet with members of the parliament or the clerks but I was able to meet with a leading constitutional expert,’’ Ms Burke states in her report-back to Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.

“The visit to the Acropolis was breathtaking and reinforced the need to exert political pressure on the UK government to return the Parthenon Sculptures.’’

Liberal MP Sharman Stone — who is Australia’s new Ambassador for Girls and Women — announced her retirement just one day before departing on a $5808 trip to Bhutan and Thailand last March.

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Dr Stone met the Queen Mother of Bhutan, and visited a traditional papermaking factory, a women’s weaving co-operative and several monasteries.

She wandered through fruit and vegetable ​markets, noting in her official report that hygiene was “severely compromised​ ​by the huge number of dogs … and the wandering cattle’’.

“The market manager explained that people were annoyed by the fresh excrement deposited throughout the open-air market space, but given the national religion does not permit the killing of​ animals, then he​feel (sic) he had little capacity to change things,’’ she wrote.

Two months before announcing her retirement, Dr Stone spent another $12,659 in taxpayer funds on a 10-day trip to Canada, where​ she discussed foetal alcohol syndrome. Labor backbencher Bernie Ripoll spent $9718 on week-long study trip to Israel — then quit politics a few months later.

And Labor frontbencher Gary Gray spent $5855 on​ a study tour to South Korea, where he toured Shell’s floating liquid natural gas production facility, before retiring six months later.

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Conservative Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, who attended a “prayer breakfast” in Washington during a parliamentary sitting week last February, declared that the $1855 billed to taxpayers “funded part of the trip; the majority of the cost was paid by me personally’’.

Liberal backbencher Andrew Laming — a former doctor famed for his ability to scull a​ ​beer while doing a handstand — yesterday said he spent $3200 for an eight-day trip​ ​to Thailand last April to study “Thailand’s health system, surgical treatments​ and the medical/travel insurance issue for Australian travellers’’.

Before the allowance was axed in August, MPs were entitled to take their partners on one overseas trip in each term of parliament “for studies and investigations relating to their duties and responsibilities as MPs’’.​

The cost per trip was capped at the price of two first-class round-the-world airfares — about $23,000 — but MPs could claim the cost of airfares, accommodation, food and drink.

Sussan Ley with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.