Taxpayers foot bill for Tasmanian senator Richard Colbeck’s AFL spree
A Tasmanian Liberal senator spent tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer cash attending AFL games — after spearheading a campaign not to give any public funds to the league.
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EMBATTLED federal Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck spent tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer cash attending AFL games — after spearheading a campaign not to give any public funds to the league.
An analysis of travel expenses reveals the Tasmanian Liberal senator — who is under fire for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis in aged care — billed taxpayers almost $20,000 last year to attend several AFL events.
The Sunday Tasmanian can reveal Senator Colbeck, who is also Sports Minister, charged taxpayers almost $3000 to take his family to the 2019 Grand Final and more than $900 to attend the Brownlow Medal ceremony.
Taxpayers also forked out $1334 for Senator Colbeck to attend an AFL fundraiser at Cape York House.
And three weeks after he declared “precious taxpayer funds” shouldn’t be given to the AFL, Senator Colbeck billed taxpayers $12,657 to attend the third annual AFL match in Shanghai.
The pricey trips came after he led a campaign vowing not to give “a handout from the taxpayer to one of Australia’s richest sporting organisations”.
During last year’s election, Senator Colbeck led the fight against Labor’s plan to spend public money to help establish an AFL team in his home state of Tasmania.
“We all love our footy. We think Tasmania deserves a Tasmanian football team, but not at the expense of taxpayer funding,” he said at the time.
An analysis of the Coalition’s 2019 election material found Senator Colbeck personally authorised more than 30 media releases against helping the AFL establish a Tasmanian team.
A spokesman for Senator Colbeck said that as Sports Minister, he was required to attend sporting events. Each event was publicly disclosed.
“The minister is on the public record as being a strong supporter of the push to have an AFL team based in Tasmania, and he has always maintained that taxpayer funds shouldn’t be used to prop up the day-to-day operations of such a team,” the spokesman said.
“The AFL should support the expansion in the same way it has done in Western Australia, South Australia, NSW and Queensland.”
Originally published as Taxpayers foot bill for Tasmanian senator Richard Colbeck’s AFL spree