Coalition Politicians Accepted Paid Trips from Foreign Billionaires for Conservative Event, While Opposition Criticizes PM’s Travel as ‘Airbus Albo’

EXCLUSIVE 

The Coalition permitted 14 MPs and senators, which included over a quarter of Peter Dutton’s core team, to attend a conference in London. This occurred just weeks before they criticized the Prime Minister as ‘Airbus Albo’ for his busy travel timetable.

A significant number of Opposition representatives journeyed to an international event for conservative politicians known as the ‘Alliance for Responsible Citizenship’ held from October 28 to November 1.

About 16 per cent of the Coalition’s party room and 26.7 per cent of their front bench took the 17,000km trip from Australia.

Mr. Albanese has faced substantial backlash from the Opposition. They have seized upon the ‘Airbus Albo’ moniker, particularly Peter Dutton, who urged the PM to cancel his fourth voyage in a single month to the APEC summit in San Francisco the previous week.

But Patrick Gorman, the assistant minister to the Prime Minister, told Daily Mail Australia that Mr Albanese’s trips were easier to justify than the huge delegation who travelled to the UK to hear Jordan Peterson speak and deliver their own speeches to conservative figures from around the world.

‘The Albanese Government is working hard to restore our international relationships after a decade of mismanagement,’ Mr Gorman said.

‘It is hard to see how more than a quarter of the Coalition’s frontbench travelling on the dime of foreign billionaires and overseas hedge funds is in Australia’s national interest.’ 

Mr Albanese has made 20 trips in the 19 months since he landed the top job.

But at a time when everyday Australians are struggling to pay their mortgages and rents, can’t fill their petrol tanks and interest rates are soaring, the optics of the trips have been less than ideal.

He’s not the first PM to be criticised for their travels. Kevin Rudd earned the nickname ‘Kevin 747’ in his day for his huge mileage. 

In reality, Mr Albanese has made a similar number of trips to both Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott in each of their first 12 months on the job.

One Labor insider described Mr Dutton’s criticism of Mr Albanese’s trip to APEC –  even though only one prime minister has ever cancelled on the summit due to a death in the family – as an ‘unfair and, frankly, low attempt to incite outrage’.

Labor politicians, including Deputy PM Richard Marles, rushed to Mr Albanese’s defence and said the government ‘made no apology for the fact we are engaging with the world’.

‘What we inherited when we came to power in May of this year was the worst circumstances in terms of our global relations that this country has ever faced.

‘We had the situation with our largest trading partner where there was no contact whatsoever. With the country about whom we have the greatest security anxiety there was no formal defence dialogue in place at all.’

Shadow Minister for Home Affairs James Paterson is one Coalition Senator who was critical of Mr Albanese’s decision to attend APEC and leave his government to pass through legislation in his absence last week. 

Mr Paterson last week described the APEC trip – which occurred while the government scrambled to address a landmark High Court decision releasing more than 80 asylum seekers – as an ‘abdication of responsibility’.

But Mr Paterson has also repeatedly said that he personally ‘strongly supports the need for the Prime Minister to travel internationally in these times of heightened strategic competition’.

‘We need a seat at the table, but he should not have left the country until this matter was dealt with. He should have used the time he had while he was in the country to make sure that these robust protections for the community passed. 

‘He hasn’t done so. That is a failure of leadership by the Prime Minister. That is an abdication of responsibility. He should not be jetting off while criminals remain free to roam the streets.’

According to Senator Paterson’s register of interest, he has spent 34 days in the past 12 months on overseas trips, citing six separate international visits.

Mr Paterson was one of the 14 MPs and senators who attended the ARC summit, alongside former prime minister Scott Morrison, Angus Taylor, Barnaby Joyce and Julian Leeser.

Alex Antic, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Andrew Hastie, Matt Canavan, Dan Tehan and Anne Webster were also among Coalition guests, as were Henry Pike, Garth Hamilton and David Fawcett.

The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is the brainchild of psychologist Jordan Peterson, and is described as a centre-right structure to ‘replace… division and drift within conservatism’.

ARC has two shareholders – British billionaire Sir Paul Marshall and Dubai-based investment group Legatum Ventures. The organisation funded the travel of each of the parliamentarians who attended.

Mr Paterson’s register of interests reveals he has travelled to Honolulu, Washington, Singapore, California, New York, Tokyo and London during the 47th Parliament in his role as Shadow Home Affairs minister.

And former PM Mr Morrison made four separate declarations regarding the trip and subsequent travel while on the other side of the world.

Mr Morrison was gifted a return business class airfare and accommodation to attend ARC from October 28 to November 1. 

He spent a further day in London as the guest of the Royal Over-Seas League, and was then flown – business class again – to Edinburgh to host a discussion panel at the University of St Andrews about the ‘politics, economics and leadership of Australia’.

The whirlwind trip didn’t end there for Mr Morrison, who was then gifted a return private charter flight to Tel Aviv, with accommodation and security gifted as the guest of Boris Johnson, former prime minister of the UK.

The PM is now back in Australia. He shared a photograph from Canberra on Monday morning of a Cabinet meeting.