Pauline Hanson claimed $16,000 for private charter despite claiming floods tour was at ‘no cost to taxpayer’

Pauline Hanson billed taxpayers almost $16,000 in private charter flights to travel around flood-affected Queensland on the suggestion of billionaire Gina Rinehart, despite previously claiming the trip was at “no cost to the taxpayer”. In January, Hanson and Barnaby Joyce flew on Rinehart’s luxury Gulfstream G700 from the Sunshine Coast to Mount Isa, after which they travelled on charter flights to flood-affected communities around Julia Creek to meet local mayors. Explaining her reasons for the trip, Hanson told the 2 Worlds Collide podcast in February she and Joyce had accepted an offer from Rinehart to fly them up to visit the area. “Barnaby and I were visiting her [Rinehart] in Queensland and of course the floods happened up in Julia Creek,” Hanson said. “She said ‘I think you should go up to Julia Creek, and I said ‘yeah, I would love to’. She said, ‘I will take you and Barnaby up there, I think you need to go up there and see these people, isolated, and what’s happening up there’. And she said ‘I will fly you up there’, which she did at her expense and flew us up.” The host, Sam Bamford, emphasised that the trip was “not at the taxpayer’s expense”. “No – no cost to the taxpayer!” Hanson replied. Bamford then lambasted critics of Hanson’s use of Rinehart’s private jet, suggesting other billionaires were also involved in supporting political parties in Australia. …