By JOLENE OGLE
MEMBER for Wide Bay and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss is back in the headlines this week after national media revealed Mr Truss chartered a flight from a ceremony while NSW MPs at the same event boarded a commercial flight.
The Daily Telegraph reported Mr Truss took the private plane from Port Macquarie to Sydney last Thursday afternoon (30 July), while MPs at the same event flew with Qantas.
A spokesperson for Mr Truss said time restraints and prior media commitments meant commercial flights were not an option on the day.
“The Deputy Prime Minister flew commercial into Port Macquarie but the only option out was Qantas at 3.45pm,” the spokesperson said.
“But Mr Truss had a press conference scheduled for 4.30pm at Sydney airport … a commercial (flight) out of Port Macquarie was not an option for Mr Truss to meet that commitment.”
Qantas’s website shows a flight leaving Port Macquarie at 3.45pm on a Thursday would take one hour and 10 minutes to land in Sydney, meaning Mr Truss would have landed about 4.55pm that afternoon.
The comments come as Member for Mackellar Bronwyn Bishop resigns from her role as Speaker following pressure over her travel expenditure.
Labor candidate for Wide Bay Lucy Stanton has weighed in on the issue, saying the public has a right to question Mr Truss’s costly travel.
“Naturally, the community has a right to question those flights … when once again it looks like he could actually have caught a commercial flight,” she said.
“Other ministers in the Baird Government who were with Mr Truss on the day were seen boarding a Qantas flight while Mr Truss caught a charter flight.”
Since Ms Bishop resigned, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced a review into the entitlements system. Noosa Today asked Mr Truss if he supported the review, but no answer was supplied.
Ms Stanton said she was “completely supportive” of the review and said if she was elected she would not only follow the rules “to the letter” but also with a “good old-fashioned dose of common sense”.
