Australia’s Ley, hit by property row, quits
Print Edition
AUSTRALIA’S health minister stepped down temporarily yesterday to allow auditors to scour her expense accounts after she bought an apartment while on a work trip, an embarrassing start to the year for embattled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Susan Ley’s spending inquiry follows a 2015 expenses scandal where a government MP was unseated after billing taxpayers for a helicopter flight and comes with Turnbull languishing in polls and facing a restive party room.
A newspoll in Australian newspaper put Liberal Prime Minister Turnbull and his opposition Labor counterpart Bill Shorten as the least popular pair of national political leaders in 20 years.
In the year to come Turnbull’s Liberal Party-led government faces a fractious Senate that has so far stymied major progress on its legislative agenda, mainly focused on spending cuts and tax reforms aimed at balancing the national budget.
Turnbull has also struggled to keep the support of the hard-right of his own party, which still simmers with resentment since he toppled the more conservative Tony Abbott as prime minister in a party-room coup in 2015.
Ley said she had agreed to stand aside after talks with Turnbull and had agreed to repay some claims for transport and accommodation on one Gold Coast trip when she purchased the apartment.
“I apologize for the distraction that this issue has caused,” she said. “I’m very confident that the investigation will show that I have not broken any of the rules.”
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