Marles lack of transparency “frankly shocking”

Former defence minister Linda Reynolds has accused Richard Marles of abusing privileged access to VIP flights and called on the Albanese government to release full details of taxpayer-funded travel.

Defence Minister Richard Marles. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Former defence minister Linda Reynolds has accused Richard Marles of abusing privileged ­access to VIP flights and called on the Albanese government to release full details of taxpayer-funded travel.

Senator Reynolds, who served as defence minister from 2019 to 2021, said the Defence Minister was deliberately hiding details of VIP flights to avoid scrutiny on an “eye-watering” amount of travel and suggested he was taking private planes as a personal convenience.

Mr Marles has defended his $3m-plus use of VIP planes since being sworn in last year and dodged questions in parliament this week over whether he was taking his golf clubs on flights.

It was reported last month that Mr Marles spent $16,000 on a VIP flight from Labor’s nat­ional conference in Brisbane to watch the Matildas’ game against England in Sydney.

He has clocked up $3.6m in VIP flights since April 2022 but has cited security reasons for not publishing details of charter flights for ministers, with the ­information only becoming public through a Freedom of Information request.

The Greens and the Coalition on Tuesday moved to order the release of government documents to show the cost, dates, ­origins and destinations of all taxpayer-funded flights.

Senator Reynolds told The Australian that Mr Marles had been using VIP flights “on a routine basis”. She said the planes served an important purpose in transporting governors-general and prime ministers, and had previously been used on an “ad hoc” basis by former governments.

“The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence is now using it on a routine basis, which gives concern to pattern of life, because historically it has been used on an ad hoc basis to support particular events and ­attendance at particular events here and overseas,” Senator Reynolds said.

Mr Marles on Monday stood by his flight usage and said every place he had been to was in ­“pursuit of my duties as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence on behalf of this ­country”.

He said information on VIP plane travel was paused under Peter Dutton when he was ­defence minister.

Senator Reynolds said Labor’s refusal to release detailed information on the travel was “frankly shocking”, after Mr Marles’ claim of security issues was rubbished by defence ­experts, integrity bodies and former MPs. “The lack of transparency in the reports is quite frankly shocking and I think it is designed to hide their abuse of the privilege of using this resource,” Senator Reynolds said.

“I firmly believe that genuine security concerns can and should have been balanced with transparency requirements, and given the eye-watering costs that the Labor Party have racked up, the lack of transparency is no great surprise.”