Embattled Health Minister Sussan Ley to stand aside during investigation into NYE trips
UPDATE: Health Minister Sussan Ley has declared she does not expect to lose her Cabinet spot despite standing aside pending an investigation int claims she slugged the taxpayer for New Year’s Eve trips to the Gold Coast.
NSW
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EMBATTLED Health Minister Sussan Ley has stood aside without ministerial pay while her travel claims to the Gold Coast are investigated.
Ms Ley caved into mounting pressure to step aside this morning, after News Corp revealed she claimed travel costs for New Year’s Eve celebrations two years in a row.
However a defiant Ms Lay declared she does not expect to lose her Cabinet spot as a result of her travel woes, as she continued to defend her expense claims.
“I have nothing to hide,” she told reporters. “I have not broken any of the rules.”
In a lengthy press conference outside her Albury electorate office, Ms Ley said agreeing to pay back some of the costs for her trips to the Gold Coast were not an admission she had broken the rules.
“I’m very confident that the investigations will demonstrate that no rules were broken whatsoever,” she said.
“But I also recognise, as you describe it, the pub test, and I recognise that for people who live in my electorate, who work hard, who understand about living on fixed incomes and have experienced a life I’ve experienced in the past, this has a look that, you know, that I don’t understand those issues and I don’t recognise them and in fact the opposite is the case.
“So I am making available my records and I’m very confident that they will be within the rules.
The Health Minister defended travel on New Year’s Eve 2013 and 2014 to the Gold Coast, saying it was at the invitation of a “prominent Queensland businesswoman”.
“In 2013 it was for a business lunch and in 2014 it was for her annual New Year’s Eve event,” she said.
She said she claimed flights and taxis to get to the 2013 lunch, but did not claim accommodation because she was on leave from the next day.
In 2014, she did not claim accommodation as she travelled privately. Ms Ley said she travelled to a “sporting function” in Sydney on New Year’s Day last year as the minister responsible for sport.
Earlier Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull issued a statement to say he had asked the secretary of his department to look into the matter and provide advice.
“The Secretary will thoroughly investigate the travel claims and the Minister has assured me that she will promptly provide all information and assistance sought by the Secretary for the purpose of this investigation,” he said.
“Australians expect the Government to deal with these serious matters very thoroughly and in accordance with the Statement of Ministerial Standards.”
Arthur Sinodinos well step in while the issue is ongoing.
Mr Turnbull said he expected the “highest standards” friom his ministers.
“The Minister has agreed to stand aside without ministerial pay until this investigation is completed by the Secretary,” he said.
“I have asked Senator the Honourable Arthur Sinodinos AO to act as Minister for Health and Aged Care, and Minister for Sport.”
Ms Ley also defended the Gold Coast trip during which she bought a property, insisting she didn’t even bother phoning or emailing the real estate agent before hand and only saw the property for the first time about 10 minutes before the bids started.
She said she was not aware of who the vendor was.
Ms Ley also said it was more “cost effective” to stay on the Gold Coast in terms of her return south.
She had visited Queensland to make an announcement at Brisbane’s Wesley Hospital relating to medicine funding in May 2015.
Ms Ley has previously said she had met with patients on the Gold Coast.
Today, she said she had been having “ongoing” conversations with a patient and their family, who had asked to meet her to discuss access to medicines relating to their cancer.
“I made contact with the family on the Friday evening to advise that I could be there Saturday afternoon for a meeting,” she said.
“My partner was invited and accompanied me too.”
The Minister said her office had “clarified his entitlement”, adding that the department would have a record of the conversation.
She said it was him who drew her attention to the auction when he saw it.
“My decision late Friday to attend this auction was made after I had planned to travel to the Gold Coast from Brisbane,” she said.
“The Comcar was booked at 9pm Friday night to take me from Brisbane to my hotel and then drop me at the auction two minutes away. In hindsight, I should have just got out of the hotel. I inspected this property for the first time maybe 10 minutes before the auction commenced and I registered to bid.”
Ms Ley said: “I had an idea of what I wanted and this apartment fit the bill. So the purchase of this particular property was neither planned nor anticipated.”
She insisted she didn’t contact the agent about the property, nor did she make any phone calls or send any emails.
Ms Ley admitted the auction changed the “character of the occasion to one of a more personal nature” and her claim should have been adjusted accordingly.
IT WOULD SEEM UNUSUAL TO HAVE OFFICIAL BUSINESS ON NYE
Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King earlier called on Ms Ley to publicly explain her New Year’s Eve jaunts.
“It would seem unusual to have official business on New Year’s Eve,” she told ABC Radio this morning.
Education minister Simon Birmingham said extensive travel was part of Ms Ley’s responsibilities and he did not think she had breached the ministerial code of conduct.
“I don’t believe that is the case,” he told ABC Radio.
“I think we are expected to be held to a high standard and accountability and transparency, and in this regard Sussan thinks it’s appropriate to make some repayments and I appreciate and understand why.”
The scandal engulfing the Minister could grow further as the Finance Department has been asked to probe all of Ms Ley’s ministerial travel to the Gold Coast — where she owns property and her partner runs a bin cleaning business.
Revelations about Ms Ley’s extravagant spending could not come at a worse time for the Turnbull Government as it struggles to fix the Centrelink debt-collecting debacle, while cutting pensions from more 300,000 elderly Australians.
During her first New Year’s Eve trip in 2013, Ms Ley claimed $575 when she flew to the Gold Coast from Albury on December 30.
She also used her cabcharge allowance four times in Queensland during the December 30 to 31 holiday period, costing the public purse more than $335.
Ms Ley returned to the Gold Coast for New Year’s Eve again in 2014, claiming two $269 flights for herself and a family member from Coolangatta to Sydney on January 1.
Taxpayers did not cover any accommodation costs for the New Year’s Eve jaunts.
News Corp can also reveal Ms Ley travelled to the Gold Coast at least 17 times between 2013 and 2016, costing taxpayers more than $40,000.
News Corphas attempted to cross reference all Ms Ley’s Gold Coast trips with her parliamentary and ministerial duties — public appearances, media events, press releases, speeches and meetings — but could not find evidence of any “official business” on at least nine occasions.
Those trips alone cost taxpayers more than $20,000.
But a spokesman for Ms Ley said that the Minister undertakes “extensive meetings with doctors, patients and other organisations” and just because there was no media release or speech on the public record it didn’t mean there was no justification for the trip.
He also said the focus on the Gold Coast was “misleading” because Ms Ley travelled to Sydney and Melbourne more than 50 times during the same period.
Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King yesterday called for her resignation, saying there was no credible explanation for taxpayer-funded trips to the Gold Coast on weekends and holidays.
“These revelations make it crystal clear that Malcolm Turnbull must sack Sussan Ley,” Ms King said yesterday.
“Ley has violated every tenet of Malcolm Turnbull’s own ministerial standards. Either she must walk or Mr Turnbull must push her.”
Some examples of Ms Ley’s trips to the Gold Coast include a four night stay in July 2014 when taxpayers forked out $4388 in travel costs for Ms Ley and a family member and a weekend trip in September 2014 totalling more than $2000.
As a shadow minister Ms Ley also spent four nights on the Gold Coast at a cost of $3352 in March 2013.
The following month she returned to the Gold Coast with a family member billing taxpayers for flights, taxis, car hire and chauffeur driven cars totalling $3594.
In May 2013, Ms Ley again returned to the Gold Coast for “official business” with a family member claiming $2907 in flights and travel allowance claims.
In a statement released yesterday, the Health Minister said she had examined her records and identified two claims for accommodation on the Gold Coast in 2014 and 2015 where she now believes she should have “stayed and claimed in Brisbane”.
She also said a flight taken in June 2015 from Coolangatta to Canberra should not have been charged to taxpayers.
The apology comes just days after News Corprevealed Ms Ley purchased a $795,000 apartment on the Gold Coast during a taxpayer-funded work trip.
Ms Ley apologised for the “error of judgment” and said she had spoken to Mr Turnbull who agreed that it didn’t meet “the high standards he expects of Ministers”.
Senators and MPs are allowed to use taxpayer-funded hire cars, chauffeur-driven Comcars or taxis for parliamentary business such as “informing constituents about issues” and attending meetings.
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