Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg used taxpayer funds to fly to a Christmas party hosted by Rupert Murdoch’s son during the 2019 bushfires.
It’s no secret that Scott Morrison gets around. We know he loves to shake hands and he most certainly loves to fly, according to documents detailing our Prime Minister’s travel expenses. *Queues R. Kelly‘s I Believe I Can Fly.*
Our mate Scotty from Marketing is once again trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons, after an article revealed that the PM and his goons spent close to $5,000 of taxpayer money on flights to attend media mogul prince Lachlan Murdoch’s Christmas party at his mansion ‘Le Manoir’ in Sydney. If you can’t f**k off to Hawaii without Australia losing it, why not go get f**ked up using the country’s taxes?
On December 5, during the height of the catastrophic bushfires that left Australia covered in ashes, Scott Morrison left Canberra after the last sitting day of parliament for the year.
He, along with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, flew to Sydney so that they could attend Lachlan Murdoch’s lavish Christmas party, before returning to Canberra the following morning – and while some of us were losing our homes, we were all footing the bill.
The pair, along with Ministers Peter Dutton and Stuart Robert, caught a flight to Sydney at an expense of
$2,153, where Morrison and Frydenberg were confirmed to have been dropped to the party via Comcars funded by taxpayers.
While Robert was in Sydney on parliamentary business, it was neither confirmed nor denied if Peter Dutton attended the party with Morrison and Frydenberg.
The party hosted a who’s who of the Australian wealthy, including Australia’s richest man, Anthony Pratt, Crown casino boss, John Alexander, and crown to the Stokes media empire, Ryan Stokes.
Speaking of expensive taste, Scott Morrison has been our most costly Prime Minister ever – spending $3,100,000 on travel costs alone, meanwhile splashing $250,000,000 to refurbish his private jet Shark One.
If you want to dash to Sydney to worship at the feet of your chief propagandist Lachlan Murdoch, you pay for it yourself @ScottMorrisonMP. Why should Australian tax payers pay for you to attend a party celebrating the anti-democracy, science-denying cancerous Murdoch media?
— 💧😷Queen Victoria (@Vic_Rollison) December 3, 2020
Records showed Morrison, Frydenberg, and Dutton all flew back to Canberra the morning after the party, costing $2,583. This raises the question as to what official business Dutton would have gotten up to in roughly a 14-hour window, given the group would have left Canberra around 7 pm and returned by 9 am.
Dutton and Morrison would hold a press conference at Canberra airport to discuss new anti-terrorism measures, while Frydenberg flew home to Melbourne from Canberra, netting another $486. Dutton then flew home to Brisbane costing $831.
Morrison’s private jet is used by senior ministers when commercial flights are unavailable or considered unsuitable for travel under special circumstances. Using the aircraft is to be limited to parliamentary business and the expenses should represent value for money. The only way I could possibly put this trip and ‘value for money’ in the same sentence is if it somehow ended with ScoMo making another appearance at Engadine Macca’s.
Scott Morrison flew to Sydney with his family, giving himself more justification for the flight to be acceptable; however, Frydenberg repeatedly ignored questions and failed to justify his trip to Sydney as constituting parliamentary business – and whether his attendance at the Christmas party was the sole reason for his trip to Sydney. Currently, there is no comment or public record of the Treasurer having any official business in Sydney on the night of December 5.
The only member of the four to respond to questions was Stuart Robert, who gave a record of official parliamentary business and confirmed that he did not attend the Murdoch party.
As the smoke from bushfires all but obscured the city, @ScottMorrisonMP, @JoshFrydenberg and the Orc Dutton, flew into Sydney to kiss the ring of their owner's son and swill his grog . You, my fellow Aussies, were stuck with the bill.
Why do they still have jobs? Resign now.
— Mark Langham (@MarkLangham2) December 3, 2020
