One of five trips cost taxpayers $6696 but spokeswoman says all expenses on trips were appropriately declared

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Just a few days after the health minister, Sussan Ley, resigned it has been revealed the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, billed taxpayers more than $23,000 for weekend trips to the beach resort town of Broome with his wife over five years.

Between 2010 and 2014 West Australian senator Cormann and his wife made five taxpayer-funded trips to Broome on weekends for electorate business. A three-day trip in July 2014 cost taxpayers $6,696, including $5,662 on flights.

Cormann also claimed $820 in travel allowance and $214 in car costs.

Sussan Ley quits as health minister as Turnbull outlines reform to expenses Read more

A previous trip from Friday to Sunday at the start of July 2013 cost taxpayers $4,563, and a similar trip in May 2012 cost $4,831. The total cost of the five trips was $23,088.

However, a spokeswoman for Cormann jumped to the defence of the finance minister, saying all of his expenses on the trips to Broome were completely legitimate and always appropriately declared.

“Senator Cormann’s job as a senator for Western Australia necessarily involves travel across his very large electorate to attend functions and meet with constituents, business and community stakeholders,” the spokeswoman told Fairfax Media.

“Inevitably, much of the travel and attendance at functions and events in the electorate, whether in Perth or across regional WA, occurs Fridays to Sundays, when Senator Cormann has returned back to his home state from interstate parliamentary work commitments.”

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has announced he will overhaul the parliamentary entitlements system by establishing a new independent body to oversee MPs’ expense claims.

On Friday Turnbull also promised improved transparency with monthly disclosure of parliamentarians’ expenses in a searchable format.

The reforms come on top of the announcement on Tuesday by the acting special minister of state, Kelly O’Dwyer, that the government would implement all 36 recommendations from last year’s review of the expenses system, including clarifying what constitutes “official business”.

MPs are entitled to family reunion travel in limited circumstances to allow their spouse and dependent children to join them on parliamentary, electorate or official business and help “balance their work and family responsibilities”.

The review recommended maintaining the ability to claim three return fares for each dependent child for intra-state family reunion.

But it recommended that for inter-state family reunion travel a requirement should be added that travel is “for the dominant purpose of reunion” with the parliamentarian “who is at a location for the dominant purpose of conducting “parliamentary business”. It would also prohibit use of the provisions to undertake an inter-state family holiday.

On Wednesday reports emerged that Labor frontbenchers Chris Bowen and Brendan O’Connor charged taxpayers more than $10,000 each to take their families to Darwin during the 2015 July school holidays.

Both said the travel was within the rules as they undertook “official business” including inspecting the Inpex LNG gas facility and meetings with business owners and unions.

• Australian Associated Press contributed to this report