Globe trotting MP Don Nardella billed taxpayers for jetsetting

THE embattled Labor MP who billed taxpayers more than $100,000 to live by the beach has also been jetsetting across the world on the public purse.

Melton MP Don Nardella. Picture: Kris Reichl

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THE embattled Labor MP who billed taxpayers more than $100,000 to live by the beach has also been jetsetting across the world on the public purse.

Over the past three years, Melton MP Don Nardella has travelled to Israel, New York, New Zealand, Korea and Japan. His frequent flying included a three-month purple patch last year, when the then-deputy speaker took three separate international trips.

On a trip to New Zealand in 2014, Mr Nardella justified staying an extra few days to check out the botanic gardens in the beachside city of New Plymouth.

Melton MP Don Nardella has travelled to Israel, New York, New Zealand, Korea and Japan over the past three years.

In a handwritten note handed to parliament and obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun, Mr Nardella said he ­“talked to the ranger and had a look at the garden and took pictures”.

The report was submitted a day later than required under parliamentary rules.

The revelations of multiple trips around the globe come as the Labor veteran faces growing pressure to pay back more than $100,000 he claimed through a “second residence” allowance when living in Ocean Grove — almost 100km from his electorate in Melbourne’s outer west.

It is unclear how much the overseas trip cost the taxpayer but it is understood flights and accommodation would have totalled at least $15,000.

State politicians are not required to make their spending for taxpayer-funded trips publicly available.

In the first half of 2016, Mr Nardella took trips to the US, Israel, Japan and Korea.

This included a nine-day stay in New York to attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in March last year.

In April, Mr Nardella and nine other Victorian MPs visited Israel and the Palestinian territories for a week to examine “innovation in Israel and continue to foster a strong relationship between Victoria and the State of Israel”.

Mr Nardella was not ­returning phone calls from the Sunday Herald Sun last week about either the overseas trips or his claiming of the second residence allowance.

The Melton MP quit his position as Deputy Speaker last week after it was revealed he had claimed the allowance for ­living outside his electorate since 2014.

Speaker Telmo Languiller also quit after claiming the same allowance for living in Queenscliff instead of his ­western suburbs electorate of Tarneit.

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