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Minister
Sydney, Jan. 9, 2017 (dpa/NAN) Australia’s Minister for Health, Aged care and Sports, Sussan Ley, announced on Monday she will step aside.
This happened after it was revealed that Ley had used taxpayer-funded official trips for personal use, including one to buy an apartment for herself.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he had asked for a thorough investigation into her travel claims and Ley “had agreed to stand aside without ministerial pay” until it is completed.
“I expect the highest standards from my ministers in all aspects of their conduct, and especially the expenditure of public money,” Turnbull said in a statement.
Local media reported last week that Ley and her partner had bought an apartment worth 795,000 Australian dollars (581,000 US dollars) during a ministerial trip to the Gold Coast in Queensland in May 2015.
Ley on Monday said she had agreed to pay back some of the costs for her trips but maintained that she had not broken any rules.
“I am very confident that the investigations will demonstrate that no rules were broken whatsoever,” she told reporters.
She said she visited the Gold Coast to have ongoing conversations with a health patient and her partner drew her attention to an auction during the trip.
The purchase “was neither planned nor anticipated,’’ Ley said.
She said that she inspected the apartment for the first time 10 minutes before the auction started and felt it “fit the bill”.
“I realised that my purchase of the unit changed the character of the occasion to one of a more personal nature and I should have adjusted my travel claim accordingly.”
Local media revealed that she had claimed travel costs to the Gold Coast for personal New Year’s Eve celebrations two years in a row.
Ley, a parliamentarian since 2001, was appointed health minister in December 2014. (dpa/NAN)
OYE/MO
========Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Morayo Omolade