Revealed: The extraordinary number of Coalition MPs and Senators who took a freebie trip paid for by foreign billionaires to a conservative talkfest – before Opposition slammed the PM as ‘Airbus Albo’ for his travel

EXCLUSIVE

The Coalition allowed 14 MPs and senators, including more than a quarter of Peter Dutton’s front bench, to travel to a summit in London weeks before criticizing the prime minister as “Airbus Albo” for his busy travel schedule.

The large opposition delegation traveled to an international meeting of conservative politicians called the “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” from October 28 to November 1.

About 16 per cent of the Coalition’s party room members and 26.7 per cent of its front bench made the 17,000 kilometer journey from Australia.

Albanese has been heavily criticized by the opposition, which has adopted the nickname “Airbus Albo”, and Peter Dutton called on the prime minister to cancel his fourth trip in a month to the APEC summit in San Francisco last week.

But Patrick Gorman, a deputy minister to the Prime Minister, told Daily Mail Australia that Albanese’s trips were easier to justify than the huge delegation that traveled to the UK to hear Jordan Peterson speak and give his own speeches to conservative figures across the country. the world. .

“The Albanese Government is working hard to restore our international relations after a decade of mismanagement,” Gorman said.

“It is difficult to see how more than a quarter of Coalition members traveling on money from foreign billionaires and foreign hedge funds is in Australia’s national interest.”

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

But at a time when ordinary Australians are struggling to pay their mortgages and rents, can’t fill their gas tanks and interest rates are soaring, travel optics haven’t been ideal.

He is not the first prime minister to be criticized for his travels. Kevin Rudd once earned the nickname ‘Kevin 747’ for his enormous mileage.

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

A Labor pundit described Dutton’s criticism of Albanese’s APEC trip – despite only one prime minister having canceled the summit due to a death in the family – as an “unfair and, frankly, base attempt to incite outrage.” “.

Labor politicians, including Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, rushed to defend Albanese, saying the government “made no apologies for the fact that we are engaging with the world”.

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

‘We had a situation with our largest trading partner in which there was no contact at all. “There was no formal defense dialogue with the country that worries us most in terms of security.”

Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson is a coalition senator who criticized Albanese’s decision to attend APEC and let his government pass the legislation in his absence last week.

Last week, Paterson described APEC’s trip, which came as the government rushed to address a landmark High Court decision that freed 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 increased strategic competition”.

‘We need a seat at the table, but he should not have left the country until this matter has been resolved. He should have used the time he had while he was in the country to make sure these strong community protections were passed.

‘He hasn’t. This is a lack of leadership on the part of the Prime Minister. That is an abdication of responsibility. He shouldn’t leave while criminals are still free to roam the streets.

According to Senator Paterson’s record of interests, he has spent 34 days in the last 12 months traveling abroad, citing six separate international visits.

Paterson was one of 14 MPs and senators who attended the ARC summit, along with 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 the 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 center-right structure to “replace…the division and drift within conservatism.”

ARC has two shareholders: British billionaire Sir Paul Marshall and Dubai-based investment group Legatum Ventures. The organization financed the trip of each of the parliamentarians who attended.

Mr Paterson’s register of interests reveals that he traveled to Honolulu, Washington, Singapore, California, New York, Tokyo and London during the 47th Parliament in his role as shadow home secretary.

And former Prime Minister Morrison made four separate statements about the trip and subsequent travel while on the other side of the world.

Mr Morrison was provided with a return business class flight ticket and accommodation to attend ARC from 28 October to 1 November.

He spent another day in London as a guest of the Royal Over-Seas League, and then flew (again in business class) to Edinburgh to host a panel discussion at the University of St Andrews on “politics, economics and Australia’s leadership. ‘.

The whirlwind trip did not end there for Morrison, who was later gifted a private charter flight back to Tel Aviv, with accommodation and security as a guest of Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister is now back in Australia. He shared a photo from Canberra on Monday morning of a Cabinet meeting.