Karl Stefanovic hits Richard Marles with brutal question amid furore over Deputy PM billing taxpayers $3.6million for VIP flights
Karl Stefanovic asks Richard Marles with brutal question amid furor over Deputy Prime Minister charging taxpayers $3.6 million for VIP flights
Secretary of Defense Richard Marles has come under fire for the first time on air over claims he spent $3.6 million in taxpayers’ money on VIP flights.
Mr Marles was asked on Friday’s Nine’s Today Show about his flight bill – which included a flight from Sydney to Brisbane for a Matildas semi-final.
Host Karl Stefanovic asks Mr. Marles, “Do you want to be honest?”
Richard Marles said media reports of the $3.6 million VIP flights were ‘very frustrating’
Stefanovic asked Marles if he wanted to “come to terms” about the flights
Mr Marles replied: ‘I’m glad you brought this up as it’s been a very frustrating week when it comes to watching the media.
“I am the authorizing person for those flights. Many people travel on these flights. My direct share is a fraction of the number reported.
“Everything I’ve done has been in the interest of the Australian people… and I stand by all the flights I’ve made.”
Mr Marles then blamed an ‘unreliable spreadsheet’ that opposition leader Peter Dutton said had been put into circulation for the whiff of scandal surrounding him.
Stefanovic said he could clear things up by making his flight schedules public.
Mr Marles claimed that he ‘would like to have all that made public as it would make things much clearer’.
Mr Dutton said Mr Marles is ‘disgracing former Federal Chairman Bronwyn Bishop… He is putting Bronnie to shame’.
Ms Bishop stepped down as Speaker of Parliament after it was revealed she had chartered helicopter flights from Melbourne to Geelong in 2014 to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser.
Taxpayers paid $5,227.27 for a trip that usually takes an hour by car. Further revelations about spending followed and she resigned in August 2015.
It was revealed last week that Mr Marles had been consulted on the decision to stop publishing details of where politicians fly on VIP flights.
Mr Marles’ involvement was in response to an Australian Federal Police security investigation carried out at the request of the government.
“The Secretary of Defense, as one of the biggest customers of these expensive VIP flights, had a direct interest in this and clearly benefited from the change in the rules,” said Greens senator David Shoebridge.
“That interest should have been made absolutely clear when his office insisted that the details of his boss’s VIP trip be kept secret.”
The decision not to make the information publicly available was the first time in 50 years that the rule had been changed.