16 Mar 2008

Business-Related Expenses


Kevin Rudd explains his Chinese-paid trip to Sudan in 2006:
"If you were shadow foreign minister as long as I was you know there was no travel budget provided through the Parliament. As a consequence, what you did was rely upon private sponsorship. The way of maintaining public accountability on this is to make sure that your pecuniary interest register declares all such sources of sponsored travel."
Surely the real question is why he needed to visit Sudan at all. Did it have anything to do with the Sudanese oil industry, or Chinese arms sales? Or did he need to be up close and personal with all those orphans in Darfur to make sure they were really dying?

I wonder if 0.07% will pick this one up and run with it? You know what they say about running with scissors, Brendan...