Forget the Speakership, Bronwyn Bishop lost her chance to claim the prize money from her local pub’s badge draw

IT’S been a rough week for Bronwyn Bishop, but her luck seemed to turn when she won the jackpot at her local RSL. There’s just one problem.

BRONWYN Bishop just can’t catch a break.

The former Speaker of the House missed out on a chance to claim a $2,500 prize at her local RSL club when her membership number was pulled out of the badge draw last night.

General manager of the RSL, Angus Rimmer, confirmed to news.com.au that her number was drawn on Monday night for their weekly cash giveaway.

But as with most badge draws, the member has to be in the venue at the time of the event in order to claim the prize. Unfortunately for Ms Bishop, she was in Canberra as parliament went back yesterday following a seven week break.

“Everyone was having a good laugh, given recent events,” Mr Rimmer said.

The Liberal Party veteran is also a longtime member of the Avalon Beach RSL Club in northern Sydney, but right now she must be ruing the demanding hours of her job.

So not only did she have to sit in the backbench and watch the new Speaker, Tony Smith take her job and $340,000 salary yesterday, she also missed her chance to collect her RSL winnings.

What a crappy day.

Mrs Bishop might not be in desperate need of the prize money but it surely would’ve come in handy after she was forced to pay back the $5,000 she spent on a fateful helicopter ride from Melbourne to a Geelong fundraiser.

While public sentiment has been fierce over recent reports of her lavish spending of taxpayer money on travel entitlements, Mr Rimmer said she was a well liked member of the club.

“She’s been a big supporter of the club, she gets behind a lot of our events like our Anzac Day,” he said.

When asked if he was disappointed the federal member for Mackellar wasn’t there to claim her prize, he replied with a less than spirited “oh yeah”.

That about sums it up.

“Wonder if I’ve got time to get to the pub ...”