Australian Gambling Minister Spends AU $50,000 on Research Trip The Australian Minister of Gaming and Racing, Grant McBride, took a luxury around- the world trip to research gambling casinos and horseracing with two of his staff members, during which he spent almost $50,000 in taxpayer money. Mr. McBride and his staff flew business class and stayed at luxury hotels throughout the trip.
The trip, which took the gambling minister and his advisors to casinos, racecourses, and a problem gambling center in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Macau, Beijing, Hong Kong and London over a two- month period last year, cost more than $43,000. Mr. McBride traveled with his policy adviser Daniel Cook and former chief of staff John Whelan. The cost of flights alone was more than $23,000.
Expense receipts submitted by the minister, who says he does not gamble or drink alcohol, did not show any evidence of gambling but they did demonstrate that the legislative trio had stayed in very expensive hotels and eaten in pricey restaurants. The minister and his staff stayed at the tony Langham Hotel in London, the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and other exclusive five- star hotels in Hong Kong and Macau.
Expense receipts also reveal the purchase of almost $100 in books by Mr. Cook. The gambling minister’s office said that the books were city maps and travel guides and not books for pleasure reading or any other purpose.
Mr. McBride is not required to prepare a report of the trip, as are those ministers who take a trip with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
The Australian Premier, Morris Iemma, defended the integrity of the trip: "The minister's trip was approved [and] it was appropriate to his portfolio duties."
Every minister, according to Mr. McBride, has the right to take one study trip per term served in Parliament. Spokesman for Mr. McBride’s office told reporters that the minister has not done anything wrong, and that the trip was entirely appropriate under Australian law and Parliamentary practices.
Mr. McBride will soon become a minister without a department, as per the government’s announcement that the Department of Gaming and Racing will be located within the newly- formed Department of the Arts, Sport and Recreation. Mr. McBride has been forced to part with his director-general of gaming and racing, Ken Brown, who has retired, his chief of staff and his press secretary. There is also speculation that Mr. McBride, who rarely holds press conferences and does not participate as fully in Parliamentary events as other ministers, was close to losing his own post in the re- organization scheme.
Although rumors that Mr. McBride will be retiring after his current term have been in circulation, a spokesman for the office said the Mr. McBride will run again in 2007.
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