Expenses defensive
MPs’ cost records revealed
THE region’s two House of Representatives MPs cost taxpayers a combined $274,000 in expenses for the six months from July 1 to December 31, 2016, new records reveal.
Corangamite Liberal MP Sarah Henderson racked up a $137,966 bill for the period, while her Corio Labor counterpart Richard Marles’ total expenditure was $136,139.
The six-figure sums come as a June 22 decision from the Remuneration Tribunal handed federal MPs a 2 per cent pay rise, which — coupled with new tax cuts — will boost the annual salary of the average backbencher to more than $200,000.
It followed a 2 per cent pay rise in January last year and a 2.4 per cent boost in 2013.
Both local MPs reported spending thousands of dollars on flags during the past six months. Ms Henderson spent $10,628 on flags, while Mr Marles spent $2946 and also reported a previously undis- closed $4329 on flags from May 1 to May 31, 2016.
Ms Henderson defended her five-figure flag fee.
“As a federal member of parliament, providing Australian and indigenous flags to schools and community organisations is an important responsibility,” she said.
“Flags are also provided to local RSLs for use at the funerals of veterans.”
Ms Henderson said she was always conscious of minimising expense costs.
“Nearly all my travel costs are due to travelling to Canberra as required for parliamentary sittings,” she said.
Mr Marles said his responsibilities as Opposition defence spokesman sometimes involved national and international travel.
Both Ms Henderson and Mr Marles posted less in the most recent expenses than they did for the first half of 2016 — Ms Henderson was down from $155,892 in the reporting period of January 1 to June 30, 2016, while Mr Marles was down from $151,704. ASHBY Primary students have come up with a soup-er idea for a pop-up shop, to raise funds for a local op shop.
The school’s grade three and four students will be cooking up a storm in the kitchen on today, making 60 litres of soup.
The hearty meals will be served out of a pop-up kitchen to other Ashby students, teachers and parents during lunchtime
Students will spend the morning cooking up chickennoodle, pumpkin and tomato soups, with a gold coin donation exchanged for each serve.
As a part of the challenge- based learning classes, students are required to find a solution for people living in cold climates and will donate proceeds from the gold coin donations to the local MS op shop.
The students were split into four groups, with the engineering and design students using wetsuits, donated by the MS op shop to insulate the student-made soup cups.
The chefs group surveyed the school to determine what soups drew the biggest demand, as well as cooking the soup. The event management group planned the pop-up soup kitchen, and the advertising and marketing group informed the community about the event.