Speaker Vicki Dunne is off to London for the fourth time in two years. But this time she is paying for her husband herself after running into trouble last year for taking him on a paid trip.
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Mrs Dunne arrives back from the 10-day trip on May 2, just in time for Liberal preselection in her seat of Ginninderra that day.
Mrs Dunne took her husband Lyle Dunne to a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association committee meeting in Malaysia last year, combining the trip with a family holiday. For that trip, she converted the business class airfare into two economy fares to take Mr Dunne, which is allowed under the association's rules.
But the ACT has its own, separate ban on spouse travel, which Clerk Tom Duncan believed should take precedence, resulting in some controversy over the trip.
She is attending another Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting this month, but this time her business class airfare will be paid by the association and her husband's trip will be funded privately.
She is away for 10 days even though the London meeting is only four days long. Remuneration Tribunal rules require parliamentarians to pay a percentage of the trip if they spend more than 40 per cent of it on private business. But Mr Duncan said when travel time was taken into account, Mrs Dunne's private component did not exceed the 40 per cent threshold, so she was not required to make a contribution.
Mrs Dunne said the minimum period she could be away just for the meeting was eight days, allowing for a rest day. She would meet her own costs for the private days.
As president of the ACT branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Mrs Dunne has had a busy term of overseas travel, with four visits to London in two years, as well as a visit to the Cayman Islands in 2013, to Cameroon in 2014, to Wellington in 2015, and to Malaysia in 2015, all on association business.
This month, Mrs Dunne declared the gift of chairman's lounge membership from Qantas for herself and her husband - an invite-only exclusive benefit that has so far only been bestowed on ministers in Canberra, not speakers. Presumably, her frequent overseas travel played a part in Qantas's gift.
The ACT pays an annual membership fee to the association of about $14,000, which covers the cost of Mrs Dunne's attendance at the annual conference and executive committee meetings.
The next meeting of the association is at the beginning of September, but the government will be well in election mode by then, and Mrs Dunne said she probably would not attend.
The ACT parliamentary Members' Guide says travel should be planned in a way "to avoid any perception that private travel is being undertaken at public expense".
