Sarah Hanson-Young pays own fare to mingle with world leaders at Davos

Sarah Hanson-Young has travelled to the Swiss Alps to rub shoulders with the world’s top political and business leaders.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is attending this week’s Davos summit.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young — who campaigns against company tax cuts and was late to pay back taxpayer-funded bills — has travelled to the Swiss Alps to rub shoulders with the world’s top chief executives and political leaders.

The Greens’ spokeswoman for finance and trade, who was named a World Economic Forum young global leader in 2016, is in Davos for the summit after paying her way to attend the conference.

Rival South Australian senators yesterday questioned her­ ­attendance at the summit after The Australian revealed earlier this month that she had left government invoices unpaid for more than 120 days on numerous occasions and overspent on staff travel by up to $20,460.

“I wish Sarah Hanson-Young well in her travels,” Liberal MP Tony Pasin said. “Personally, I think she should be more focused on domestic matters and I trust the taxpayer won’t be out of pocket for any overspending she might do on the trip.”

Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi said Senator Hanson-Young needed to “learn the first rule of good economics”.

“Pay your bills on time before pretending to have a clue about any financial matters. Sea Patrol, whale watching, Davos, they are all the same to Sarah,” he said, referring to her mistaking a fictional television program for a documentary series and a previous $4000 taxpayer-funded whale-watching trip.

A spokeswoman for Senator Hanson-Young said she had no bills owing to the Department of Finance and her participation in the forum was self-funded.

The theme of this year’s summit is “creating a shared future in a fractured world”, with the meeting expected to attract participants including British Prime Minister Theresa May, Elton John and possibly US President Donald Trump.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Trade Minister Steven Ciobo will also be at the WEF in an official capacity. “The WEF is one of the best, most efficient opportunities to engage over a very short period, in one single location, with a very large number of senior political, business and community leaders from right around the world on trade, investment and global economic trends, policy and opportunities,” Senator Cormann said.

“This includes very senior representation from right across ASEAN and the broader Asia-­Pacific Region. All of our trading partners and our competitors from around the world are there with very senior representation.

“Australia is a globally focused, outward-looking, open trading economy. It is very much in our national interest … to be represented at the WEF.”

Senator Hanson-Young had a brief career as a bank teller and was the youngest woman elected to federal parliament when she entered the Senate in 2007.