The expenses watchdog has told Craig Kelly he must pay back more than $2,000 for two taxpayer-funded trips to attend party meetings on Clive Palmer’s boat in Melbourne, documents show.
Kelly charged taxpayers for air fares, travel allowance and private car use during two trips to Melbourne in February and March last year, while Palmer’s boat was docked in the city. At the time, the United Australia party was in the middle of its $123.5m election campaign and Kelly was its only sitting MP and parliamentary leader.
The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Ipea) began querying Kelly about the trips to Melbourne in April last year, asking Kelly to justify charging taxpayers for the trips.
Documents released by Ipea after a Guardian freedom of information request show Kelly told the watchdog he was there to meet UAP members for two different state conferences. He said both meetings were for “selected” party representatives, which he described as state party conferences. The first was for Victorian members and the second was for South Australian UAP members.
“This event was held on a private boat moored at Docklands,” he told Ipea. “The reason it was held in Melbourne and not Adelaide was because bad weather had prevented the boat sailing from Melbourne to Adelaide, and instead the South Australia party members flew into Melbourne to attend.”
Taxpayer-funded travel is typically allowed for official meetings of state and federal branches of a political party and Kelly told Ipea he would provide a statutory declaration confirming the purpose of his travel.
Ipea responded that it needed to see independent evidence – diary notes, calendar entries or media reporting – to confirm the purpose of the trip. Kelly said he no longer had access to his parliamentary resources, having been voted out in 2022, and that media were not invited to the UAP state party meetings.
Ipea repeatedly asked for evidence but did not receive a reply. In February, it raised an invoice against Kelly.
“You are obliged to provide compliance information in relation to the use of public resources, as required by Ipea,” the watchdog told Kelly. “If this information is not supplied, the commonwealth is not liable for the business resources accessed. As you have not provided evidence in relation to expenses incurred within the relevant period, invoices have been raised for these expenses.”
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The invoice includes $862 for Comcar use, $131 for his daily travel allowance, and $1,536 for all other travel expenses, including a 25% penalty loading.
Kelly told the Guardian he was preparing to challenge the decision. He said the travel was justified because both trips to Melbourne were for political party meetings and said he had a policy of only flying economy class.
“I’m appealing it,” he said. “They were for two state party conferences, which are allowed for under the rules. I also have a policy of flying economy class, all of which I will attest to in a statutory declaration.”
Kelly also said Ipea has since told him they will receive a statutory declaration from him.
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