Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt spent $750,000 on staff travel in 18 months, including $108,000 in a year on an adviser subject to bullying claims who said she has a "special relationship" with the senior front-bencher.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday dug in behind his minister, who is battling to retain his marginal West Australian seat of Hasluck, after The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published damaging testimony of staff who accused the minister of having "enabled" his senior adviser, Paula Gelo, to create a toxic work environment by bullying and intimidating others.
The bullying inquiry was ordered by the office of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull but its findings slipped through the cracks after the leadership change. Mr Wyatt has refused to release the report or say what changes he has made in his office as a result of the review.
Mr Turnbull's successor, Scott Morrison, who has had to fend off accusations of bullying within his party, defended Mr Wyatt's handling of the matter saying the matter was resolved "by the normal administrative process".
Transcripts of the inquiry show concerns were raised about the travel expenditure as Mr Wyatt had allegedly ordered only the Canberra-based Gelo travel with him.
New documents provided to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age show Ms Gelo spent $108,000 on airfares as well as $31,000 in travel allowances in one year, sparking alarm inside his office because the junior minister's spending on staff travel was rivalling that of cabinet ministers.
The investigation was told this was "extraordinary for a Canberra-based person". The size of the sum was said to have "shocked and surprised" the then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's chief of staff Clive Mathieson.
"[Clive Mathieson] said something like 'Geez, that's higher than the Prime Minister,' one of Mr Wyatt's staffers recounted.
"I said 'Look, the Minister's office is the second highest travel spender in Western Australia. The second highest to Julie Bishop. He's not a cabinet minister. I'm concerned ... if they're travelling all the time it means they're not campaigning in the electorate.'"
Mr Wyatt's spending for staff travel as a junior minister was on par with the most senior members of cabinet based in WA, including Mathias Cormann and the then-foreign minister Julie Bishop.
By contrast, his Perth-based Liberal colleague, the active backbencher Senator Linda Reynolds, spent $210,552 on staff travel in the same 18-month period.
Mr Wyatt defended his staff travel as a byproduct of being based in Western Australia and the result of the "significant reforms" occurring in his portfolios of Indigenous health and aged care - the latter of which is the subject of a Royal Commission.
"It is a fact of political life that WA-based parliamentarians and staff generally have higher costs than other Members and Senators, due to the higher cost of flying to the east coast," a spokesman for the minister said.
"Listening to and talking to individuals, community groups and organisations right across the nation in these crucial portfolios is a fundamental part of getting these reforms right."
According to transcripts of interviews conducted with several staffers, Mr Wyatt said Ms Gelo was the only staffer who travelled with him. The transcripts also reveal that Ms Gelo had her travel personally approved by Mr Wyatt instead of his chief of staff.
"He said to me 'Paula is the only one who travels with me. She does all the travel with me because she knows exactly what I need and she does all the travel with me', which is very unusual in a political office," the staffer told the investigation.
"Normally the travel is shared."
The investigation was also told Mr Wyatt ignored advice and travelled with Ms Gelo, his aged care adviser, instead of his Indigenous affairs adviser to attend a meeting of the nation's health ministers in his capacity as minister for Indigenous health.
"I'd said to the minister 'Okay, because it's Indigenous health [the Indigenous health adviser] should go," the staffer said.
"[He said] 'No, no, no. Paula's going', which I thought was very unusual because Paula was supposed to focus on aged care."
Staffer made to pay Ms Gelo from her own pocket
Numerous staff told the investigation of a bizarre incident where Ms Gelo ordered a junior administrative staffer to partially pay, out of her personal income, travel expenses incurred by Ms Gelo and Mr Wyatt.
The junior staffer was asked to find accommodation for Ms Gelo and Mr Wyatt to stay in Adelaide late on a Friday afternoon. The staffer booked two rooms costing $840 through a travel booking website which did not offer refunds. The staffer told the inquiry she booked the hotel rooms at that price because it was all that was available, due to an event being held in the city at the same time.
But Ms Gelo booked separate accommodation at a cheaper rate for the same night and emailed the junior staffer demanding she pay the $430 difference out of her own pocket.
The investigation heard that the staffer, aged 22 at the time, was "taken aback" and "intimidated" by the demand from the "senior-most person in the office" at the time.
The inquiry was also told Mr Wyatt washed his hands of the incident and told staff "not to involve him" and "sort it out between ourselves".
The investigation heard the staffer was "quite scared by the whole situation," "didn't know who to talk to" and didn't know what to do so they paid the money.
The $37,000 investigation was conducted by a firm called CPM Reviews on behalf of the Department of Finance late last year and heard testimony from at least 10 staff members.
SMH/The Age
