Richard Marles booking military planes to drop him off close to home

The Deputy Prime Minister is using military planes to drop him off at an airport close to home in what’s been dubbed a personal taxi service.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is booking military planes to pick him up and drop him off at Avalon airport closer to his home in Geelong saving himself a one-hour chauffeur-driven car ride from Melbourne.

But the flights are contributing to a staggering $3.6 million bill for Mr Marles’ VIP private plane costs since last year alone.

Publicly available flight tracker information obtained by news.com.au have detailed over 70 RAAF flights in and out of Avalon since March, 2023 alone.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

But Mr Marles, who has the power to book the flight for himself and others as Defence Minister, won’t publicly confirm whether some or all of the flights are his own bookings, citing new “security advice”.

Liberal frontbencher Michael Sukkar said the expenditure now needed to be fully investigated.

“It’s a scandal that Richard Marles is spending millions of taxpayer dollars secretly using RAAF jets as a personal chauffeur service,” he told news.com.au.

“A full investigation must be conducted into these secret flights, particularly for those into Avalon Airport.

“While it’s obviously convenient for the Defence Minister getting these private flights into his home airport of Avalon, the RAAF should never be used as a personal service. With commercial flights into Tullamarine Airport being regularly available, he must explain why millions of dollars have been used to fly him in luxury while Australians suffer with a cost of living crisis.”

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce told news.com.au that Mr Marles should not be using the RAAF jets as a personal taxi service to his home in Geelong.

“I can understand fully when you’re the acting prime minister there are security reasons that require armed guards and an airforce plane,’’ he said.

“But this is not for the deputy prime minister just because he’s finished work.”

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan said he had no issue with Mr Marles conducting business overseas as Defence Minister, but flying to Avalon was another issue.

“What I’ve heard is he’s possibly taking this direct from Avalon to Canberra, in sitting weeks. But we don’t know exactly where he’s flying because he’s not telling us,’’ Mr Canavan said.

“It’s outrageous. All this crap about security it’s just a load of bullsh*t.”

Richard Marles has been booking military planes to pick him up and drop him off at Avalon airport.

Ever since a political scandal that became known as the VIP aircraft affair engulfed the Holt Government in 1967, documents outlining where and when politicians book taxpayer-funded military flights and the passenger manifests have been regularly tabled in Parliament.

But that all changed in late 2022, when Mr Marles quietly sought advice from the AFP on the security implications of that material being in the public domain.

As a result, Mr Marles has agreed that the Defence Department no longer publish information other than the total spend of each senior minister.

During the same period, the Defence Minister clocked over 700 hours in RAAF flights since 2022, a dramatic increase in flights compared to previous booking by former Defence Minister Peter Dutton and former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.

The AFP had suggested that the publication might reveal “pattern of life” data despite the fact it records flight details up to six month later and after many politicians including Mr Marles have documented his own movements in real time on Instagram and Twitter.

Half of the flights in terms of hours spent flying involved domestic travel, including a return trip from Brisbane to Sydney to attend the Matildas’s semi-final during the ALP conference this month.

A schedule of flights from 2020.

Despite savaging former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop for booking a single helicopter flight from Melbourne to Geelong to attend a party fundraiser, Mr Marles insists that all of his mystery flights are within current guidelines for special purpose flights.

“All travel conducted by the Deputy Prime Minister either in his role as Defence Minister or as Acting Prime Minister is in accordance with the relevant guidelines and security procedures,’’ a spokeswoman said.

But that’s not what he was saying in 2015, when he savaged Bronwyn Bishop’s chopper trip to Geelong from Melbourne.

“Recently, the country dropped its collective jaw at the arrogance of Speaker Bronwyn Bishop using taxpayer money to fly in a helicopter from Melbourne to Geelong,” Mr Marles wrote at the time.

“The notion of being so out of touch with how the rest of the country goes about life is one of the biggest breaches of faith a politician can commit.”

2GB radio host Ben Fordham slammed the revelations observing Mr Marles looked like a “hypocrite” and that “the double standard here is outrageous”.

“Well, this is about as transparent as a mudslide,’’ he said.

“The only reason we know about these obscene flight costs is because of freedom of information requests. They are not published as they should be. The cost of everything is going up at the moment. And so are the wheels of the private jet.

“Every time there’s a big sports event, or some kind of shindig, the politicians are lining up to get on the VIP flights. It is arrogant. Richard, it is not your money mate.”

Before the decision to strip the VIP flights records detailing where and when politicians were enforced, official records confirm that Mr Marles was one of the most frequent passengers of flights in and out of Avalon.

For example, in 2020 Mr Marles was listed on flights to and from Avalon in October and on November 8 and November 12, shortly after Melbourne’s second lockdown ended.