HAVING scraped back to power with a one-seat majority last year, Malcolm Turnbull always expected “plenty of surprises and challenges in 2017”. He did not expect them to start so soon. On January 13th the prime minister accepted the resignation of Sussan Ley, his health minister, after claims that she had misused taxpayers’ money. As the scandal erupted, the government was pursuing spending cuts and clamping down on some welfare recipients in a bid to balance the budget. That made it all the more embarrassing that Ms Ley had bought an investment property worth almost A$800,000 ($600,000) in 2015, while on a government-paid visit to the Gold Coast in Queensland.
Ms Ley tried to explain the apparent blurring of public and private business by suggesting, to widespread derision, that she had bought the flat on impulse. A string of revelations followed: she had charged taxpayers for several other Gold Coast trips; two were to New Year’s Eve parties hosted by a businesswoman who had donated money to the ruling Liberal Party; she had chartered planes to fly to official engagements instead of taking commercial flights at a fraction of the cost (she...Continue reading
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