Extract from The Guardian
• Health minister’s purchase of Gold Coast apartment was ‘not planned’
• Vendor was a Liberal donor and acquaintance but purchase was ‘pure coincidence’
• Vendor was a Liberal donor and acquaintance but purchase was ‘pure coincidence’
Sussan Ley is under fire for buying a $795,000 apartment from a Liberal party donor while on a taxpayer-funded trip to the Gold Coast.
The health minister said she had not “not planned nor anticipated” to buy the apartment.
Government documents show Ley travelled from Sydney to Brisbane on 9 May 2015, where she announced at Wesley hospital $1.3bn in funding to list new medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme.
She travelled to Main Beach on the Gold Coast the same day and bought a rental property. She and her partner then stayed the night, billing taxpayers $370 as travel allowance.
A spokeswoman for Ley said the minister had meetings with local health stakeholders on the Gold Coast about access to new medicines, but did not say who those stakeholders were.
“The property purchase was not planned nor anticipated,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to Guardian Australia. “Minister Ley’s partner was invited to accompany her to a function in Sydney on the Friday evening. He then travelled with the Minister to Queensland under family travel arrangements.
“The EMB (Entitlements Management Branch) was consulted at the time to confirm Ms Ley’s partner’s travel was within the rules. All travel undertaken was in accordance with the rules.”
The vendor of the eighth-floor Main Beach unit, the childcare operator Martin Corkery, told Guardian Australia he knew Ley on a professional basis through his advocacy for the industry when the sector came under her portfolio in opposition, then as an assistant minister.
But their acquaintance and the purchase was pure coincidence, Corkery said. He had been in Europe when the apartment was auctioned and had no idea Ley was the buyer until after contract was signed.
His first inkling was when he recognised her name on the sale contract, noting that her first name had been misspelled.
“There was an auction on that day – I was on the phone and I didn’t know who was there,” he said. “I actually do know her. But I didn’t know she was buying. I work in Europe and I didn’t care who the names [of the buyers] were.
“But when I saw the contract, I’m going, they spelled Sussan’s name wrong.”
Corkery said he had been in the childcare industry for 23 years and had “dealt with the opposition as well as the government”.
He paid $830,000 for the apartment in 2006. Flat or falling values of apartments have been common on the Gold Coast over the past decade. The penthouse apartment in the same building as Ley’s sold for $2.02m in January 2006, only to fetch $1.95m exactly six years later, property records show.
Corkery was one of the Queensland Liberal National party’s biggest individual donors in 2011, giving the party $50,000 on 30 June, according to Australian Electoral Commission filings. He also gave the LNP $1,000 cash in October 2010, according to Electoral Commission Queensland records. There is no suggestion his support for the party had any influence on the sale of the apartment to Ley.
Labor’s health spokeswoman, Catherine King, demanded Ley resign if she could not explain how purchasing a luxury apartment could be considered “official business”.
“Ley’s explanation that the purchase ‘was not planned nor anticipated’ is woefully inadequate and an insult to Australians,” King said.
“The Turnbull government is desperately trying to justify their savage cuts to Medicare by claiming they are living within their means. This new evidence reinforces just how empty this rhetoric really is.
“Sussan Ley needs to front up today and explain to Australians how purchasing a luxury apartment is considered to be ‘official business’. If she cannot do this, she has no choice but to resign, or Malcolm Turnbull must move her off his frontbench.”
Ley and her partner claimed almost $4,000 in flights between Albury, Sydney and Brisbane over 48 hours when she purchased the property, government documents show.
The ministerial code of conduct prohibits the use of public office for private purposes.
The Liberal frontbencher Greg Hunt defended his colleague on Friday. “I do know that Sussan is generally one of the most extraordinarily scrupulous ministers with her personal behaviour,” Hunt told 2GB Radio.
The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, said there was no doubt she had travelled to Queensland on legitimate ministerial business. He would not say if she had displayed poor judgment by combining the work trip with personal business, saying that was a question for her.
But he told ABC television: “If they made a purchase, even though I admit it is a substantial purchase, that’s not the reason she went to the Gold Coast. She went to the Gold Coast for work.”
Government documents show Ley owns one residential property and three rental properties.
The health minister said she had not “not planned nor anticipated” to buy the apartment.
Government documents show Ley travelled from Sydney to Brisbane on 9 May 2015, where she announced at Wesley hospital $1.3bn in funding to list new medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme.
She travelled to Main Beach on the Gold Coast the same day and bought a rental property. She and her partner then stayed the night, billing taxpayers $370 as travel allowance.
A spokeswoman for Ley said the minister had meetings with local health stakeholders on the Gold Coast about access to new medicines, but did not say who those stakeholders were.
“The property purchase was not planned nor anticipated,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to Guardian Australia. “Minister Ley’s partner was invited to accompany her to a function in Sydney on the Friday evening. He then travelled with the Minister to Queensland under family travel arrangements.
“The EMB (Entitlements Management Branch) was consulted at the time to confirm Ms Ley’s partner’s travel was within the rules. All travel undertaken was in accordance with the rules.”
The vendor of the eighth-floor Main Beach unit, the childcare operator Martin Corkery, told Guardian Australia he knew Ley on a professional basis through his advocacy for the industry when the sector came under her portfolio in opposition, then as an assistant minister.
But their acquaintance and the purchase was pure coincidence, Corkery said. He had been in Europe when the apartment was auctioned and had no idea Ley was the buyer until after contract was signed.
His first inkling was when he recognised her name on the sale contract, noting that her first name had been misspelled.
“There was an auction on that day – I was on the phone and I didn’t know who was there,” he said. “I actually do know her. But I didn’t know she was buying. I work in Europe and I didn’t care who the names [of the buyers] were.
“But when I saw the contract, I’m going, they spelled Sussan’s name wrong.”
Corkery said he had been in the childcare industry for 23 years and had “dealt with the opposition as well as the government”.
He paid $830,000 for the apartment in 2006. Flat or falling values of apartments have been common on the Gold Coast over the past decade. The penthouse apartment in the same building as Ley’s sold for $2.02m in January 2006, only to fetch $1.95m exactly six years later, property records show.
Corkery was one of the Queensland Liberal National party’s biggest individual donors in 2011, giving the party $50,000 on 30 June, according to Australian Electoral Commission filings. He also gave the LNP $1,000 cash in October 2010, according to Electoral Commission Queensland records. There is no suggestion his support for the party had any influence on the sale of the apartment to Ley.
Labor’s health spokeswoman, Catherine King, demanded Ley resign if she could not explain how purchasing a luxury apartment could be considered “official business”.
“Ley’s explanation that the purchase ‘was not planned nor anticipated’ is woefully inadequate and an insult to Australians,” King said.
“The Turnbull government is desperately trying to justify their savage cuts to Medicare by claiming they are living within their means. This new evidence reinforces just how empty this rhetoric really is.
“Sussan Ley needs to front up today and explain to Australians how purchasing a luxury apartment is considered to be ‘official business’. If she cannot do this, she has no choice but to resign, or Malcolm Turnbull must move her off his frontbench.”
Ley and her partner claimed almost $4,000 in flights between Albury, Sydney and Brisbane over 48 hours when she purchased the property, government documents show.
The ministerial code of conduct prohibits the use of public office for private purposes.
The Liberal frontbencher Greg Hunt defended his colleague on Friday. “I do know that Sussan is generally one of the most extraordinarily scrupulous ministers with her personal behaviour,” Hunt told 2GB Radio.
The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, said there was no doubt she had travelled to Queensland on legitimate ministerial business. He would not say if she had displayed poor judgment by combining the work trip with personal business, saying that was a question for her.
But he told ABC television: “If they made a purchase, even though I admit it is a substantial purchase, that’s not the reason she went to the Gold Coast. She went to the Gold Coast for work.”
Government documents show Ley owns one residential property and three rental properties.
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