$19,000 spent in a day

Corangamite MP claims big bucks for electoral material

FEDERAL MP Sarah Henderson billed taxpayers almost $20,000 in a single day last year, but this week would not reveal what it was spent on.

Department of Finance records show Ms Henderson claimed $18,984.62 for “printing and communications” costs on July 1, 2016.

The charges were listed as $11,195.82 on “e-material”, and two printed items cost- ing $2100.80 and $5688.

Ms Henderson would only give a vague response when asked about the “e-material”, claiming “the purpose was for electorate communications”.

The Corangamite MP would not say who was paid almost $12,000 for the production of the e-material, and did not give details of what the two printed items were.

She instead issued a statement defending her spending.

“I run a very frugal operation in my office and am extremely careful with my expenditure as taxpayers rightly expect,” she said.

Ms Henderson’s total “printing and communications” bill for the six months between July 1 and December 31, 2016, was $37,857.

Comparatively, federal Corio MP Richard Marles claimed $3111 on printing and communications in the same period.

The revelations come only months after Ms Henderson was caught out owning a stake in a poker machine company, despite slamming pokies as a “social curse” in her Corangamite electorate.

The Geelong Advertiser in February revealed Ms Henderson was a shareholder with Aristocrat Leisure Ltd — a Sydney-based poker machine manufacturer and one of the world’s largest providers of gambling machines and applications. In March Ms Henderson announced she would divest her entire portfolio.

The parliamentary printing and communications entitlement is part of an MP’s office budget, which for Ms Henderson is more than $130,000 annually.