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Michael McCormack and wife flew on a government jet to attend Melbourne Cup

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Dubious Travel Claims | QED | The Nationals
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Michael McCormack and wife flew on a government jet to attend Melbourne Cup

November 2019

The McCormacks flew to Melbourne on a VIP government jet before the 2019 Melbourne Cup, celebrated in the marquee of gambling giant Tabcorp, billed taxpayers for their return flights, and justified the trip by reannouncing a three-year-old funding pledge for a sports facility, according to Guardian Australia.

Michael McCormack said the trip to Melbourne was needed to make an announcement the day before the Melbourne Cup of $4 million in federal funding for a proposed indoor sports facility being built by Stonnington City Council in south-eastern Melbourne. Not only had that money already been announced by the former member for Higgins, Kelly O’Dwyer, three years earlier, but the project was – and still is – mired in legal proceedings in the Victorian supreme court that have prevented works from commencing.

Internal council correspondence, obtained by Guardian Australia, shows local councillors were shocked and dismayed when informed the week before the Melbourne Cup that McCormack and local Liberal MP Katie Allen were organising an event to “promote the federal government’s grant of $4m”.

The Australian has also reported that McCormack attended the Australian Hotels Association Melbourne Cup-eve lunch on the Monday.

Read more.

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What's a rort?

Conflicts of Interest

Redirecting funding to pet hobbies; offering jobs to the boys without a proper tender process; secretly bankrolling candidates in elections; taking up private sector jobs in apparent breach of parliament’s code of ethics, the list goes on.

Deceptive Conduct

Claiming that greenhouse gas emissions have gone down when the facts clearly show otherwise; breaking the law on responding to FoI requests; reneging on promised legislation; claiming credit for legislation that doesn’t exist; accepting donations that breach rules. You get the drift of what behaviour this category captures.

Election Rorts

In the months before the last election, the Government spent hundreds of millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers’ money on grants for sports, community safety, rural development programs and more. Many of these grants were disproportionally awarded to marginal seats, with limited oversight and even less accountability.

Dubious Travel Claims

Ministerial business that just happens to coincide with a grand final or a concert; electorate business that must be conducted in prime tourist locations, or at the same time as party fundraisers. All above board, maybe, but does it really pass the pub test? Or does it just reinforce the fact that politicians take the public for mugs?

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