Bronwyn Bishop Put On Probation By PM; But Shows Confidence In Her

Following the controversy over Speaker Bronwyn Bishop’s move to charter a flight, funded by taxpayers' money, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has decided to put Ms. Bishop on probation. Despite the decision, the Prime Minister has expressed full confidence in Ms. Bishop as a Speaker.

“Despite this serious lapse of judgment, Bronwyn has had a long and distinguished history in our parliament,” Mr. Abbott told this morning.

“Yes she has been a strong speaker, she has been a good servant of our country and a good servant of the Coalition. But like everyone who has done something like this, they are on probation."

Mr. Abbott added that he has had long conversations with the Speaker on the subject and that she was ‘quite contrite’ about what happened. He said that he clearly understands why people are unhappy about the incident, but that it was also necessary to ‘keep a sense of proportion’ here.

The controversy began when it came to the public notice that Ms. Bishop had spent AU$5227 of taxpayers' money to fund a helicopter trip to a Liberal party fundraiser. Embroiled in the controversy, the Speaker of the House of Representative decided to reimburse the whole amount including an interest of $1300 upon it. But the story does not end here; The Herald Sun revealed that the controversy stricken Speaker had taken another chartered flight to yet another Liberal Party fundraiser with the tax payer money.

The Herald Sun further reported that the expenses were not included in the 6 month audit of travel expenses by the Federal politicians. All Federal politicians are bound by rules to submit a report of all the public funded travel expenses made by them.

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