Taxpayers cough up $3700 for Pauline Hanson’s Perth fundraising trip

by Elizabeth Minter | Jun 22, 2020 | Dubious Travel Claims, One Nation, QED

Dubious Travel Claims | One Nation | QED

Pauline Hanson

Taxpayers cough up $3700 for Pauline Hanson’s Perth fundraising trip

October 2018

Pauline Hanson charged taxpayers $3,700 for a three-night trip to Perth where she held “intimate” $5000-a-head dinners for One Nation donors and a $20-per-head “fish and chip” fundraiser for about 300 people, according to Guardian Australia.

Records show that Pauline Hanson charged $3,735.07 to taxpayers for her WA trip. Her flights from Brisbane to Perth and back to Canberra cost $2,517 and Hanson also claimed three days of food and accommodation allowance worth $1,218.

Politicians are not allowed to charge taxpayers for travel if the dominant purpose is party fundraising. Guardian Australia reported that a spokesman for Hanson declined to answer numerous questions about the nature of Hanson’s parliamentary business during the trip.

At the “fish and chip” fundraiser at the Botanica Bar & Bistro in Innaloo, Perth, organised by the party’s WA executive, members of far-right extremists the Proud Boys showed up outside to counter a protest against Hanson and One Nation.

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?

Taxpayers cough up $3700 for Pauline Hanson’s Perth fundraising trip

Taxpayers cough up $3700 for Pauline Hanson’s Perth fundraising trip

What's a rort?

Conflicts of Interest

Deceptive Conduct

Election Rorts

Dubious Travel Claims

Thank you!

Thank you!

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