An Australian senator who publicly called for a government minister to resign over lavish travel expenses has been caught billing taxpayers nearly $1,000 for a trip to Tasmania that coincided with her son’s wedding, a new report has revealed.
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie charged the Australian public $853.52 in flights and accommodation for a four-day trip in February 2023, according to parliamentary expenses records examined by the Sydney Morning Herald. The trip saw her fly from Canberra to Melbourne and then immediately board a connecting flight to Launceston — the closest major airport to the vineyard in Sidmouth where her son was married on 18 February. She billed taxpayers $328.99 for the flights and a further $317 for one night’s accommodation in Launceston. A return flight to Melbourne the following Monday cost a further $207.53 — an expense that did not appear on her public expenditure record until more than a year after the wedding.
Wedding photographs posted on social media showed McKenzie socialising and dancing at the event.
A spokesperson for the senator told the Sydney Morning Herald that the bookings were “undertaken in accordance with parliamentary rules as part of a multi-state campaign to expose Labor’s budget cuts to infrastructure,” adding that McKenzie had carried out “legitimate activity as shadow infrastructure minister” related to Tasmanian road funding cuts disclosed during Senate estimates the previous week. The office also said McKenzie had personally repaid the cost of a Devonport-to-Melbourne return trip taken on 20 February, following the wedding.
The revelations carry a particular sting given McKenzie’s own public record on the issue of ministerial expenses. Just months before the wedding trip came to light, she called on Communications Minister Anika Wells to step down over a $190,000 trip to the United Nations, telling Sky News: “What you’ve got with this minister is that that was an incredibly lavish spend, to spend six and a half minutes on stage for the United Nations in the middle of the Triple Zero crisis happening here at home. I think there is an issue around character when it comes to making the call to travel in that moment.”
It is not the first time McKenzie’s expenses have attracted scrutiny. In 2024 she apologised for failing to declare 16 flight upgrades with Qantas, including on five personal trips to and from New Zealand between 2016 and 2018. She also billed taxpayers nearly $30,000 in accommodation, flights and chauffeur services to attend 21 sporting events, despite having lost the sports portfolio in 2019.
At the time of the Tasmania trip, McKenzie was earning a base parliamentary salary of $217,060, with a 25 per cent shadow minister’s loading taking her pre-tax income to $264,062 per year, according to Remuneration Tribunal records.
