West Australian MP has shares in Prairie Mining, the owner of the mine site he visited while on the trip to Poland and Netherlands

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The West Australian MP Luke Simpkins claimed more than $4,800 of taxpayer money for a study trip to Poland and the Netherlands that included a visit to the site of a proposed coalmine owned by a company he has shares in.

In April, Simpkins embarked on the week-long study tour. The West Australian MP said the purpose of the visit to Poland was to “examine the bilateral relationship, including economic opportunities for Australian businesses, and to examine matters to do with the political stability of eastern Europe”.

Bronwyn Bishop claimed car expenses on day she attended new year party Read more

On 29 April Simpkins drove to Lublin in south-eastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine. While there, he visited the site of a proposed coalmine owned by Prairie Mining.

“The consistent message was that Prairie Mining as a Western Australian coal-mining company was being very well received,” he wrote in the study tour’s report. “At every level of government Prairie was wanted and their methods of engaging the community were being acclaimed.”

Simpkins’s register of interests noted that the MP owned shares in the company, though this was not mentioned in the report.

Accommodation in Lublin for the night of 29 April was paid for by Prairie Mining, Simpkin wrote in his register of interests, though again the study tour’s report does not mention this.

Simpkins defended the visit to the mine site, saying that it was made at no cost to taxpayers.

“It was roughly a three-hour car ride to the region from Warsaw in which no accommodation or travel cost was billed to the public,” Simpkins said.

He said the trip formed only a small part of his visit to Lublin.

“Excluding travel time, the majority of my time in the region was spent with the Polish Border Patrol during which the regional commander provided an in-depth brief on national security, refugees and concerns about Russia,” he said. “The visit to the proposed mine site was no more than 30 minutes.”

Barnaby Joyce's office set-up the most expensive on record Read more

A spokesman for Simpkins said the MP “did not disclose the shares in the official report, as they are publicly accessible on the register of interests”.

Simpkins’s shares in Prairie were worth just $320, the spokesman said.

Simpkins claimed $4,852.61 in parliamentary study entitlements to undertake the trip.

The mine will cost $684m to construct and is expected to produce 6m tonnes of coal a year when it is up and running.

The former prime minister Tony Abbott pledged to conduct a “root and branch” review of the parliamentary entitlements system in August, after the resignation of the then speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, over the misuse of public money.

Bishop had claimed more than $5,000 for a helicopter flight between Melbourne and Geelong to attend a Liberal party fundraiser in November 2014.