A court challenge by former federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming against parliament’s expenditure watchdog over travel expenses has been dismissed.
Dr Laming, who is running for mayor of Redland City Council in Queensland's March local government elections, took the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority to the Federal Court over its conclusions about his travel.
He was asked to pay back $10,360, which includes a 25 per cent loading fee, after the authority audited expenses he claimed for his wife, two children and himself.
The review found Dr Laming's dominant purpose of travel from Brisbane to Hobart on June 21, 2019 and return flights between Brisbane and Melbourne in the same month was not parliamentary business.
“Dr Laming … contended that he was denied procedural fairness because certain matters were omitted from the audit, that the audit process was haphazard, and that the conclusion that his travel and expenses were not for the dominant purpose of parliamentary business was legally unreasonable,” Justice Sarah Derrington said in a judgment published on Monday.
She said Dr Laming was told on April 1, 2021 about an assurance review regarding Commonwealth-funded travel and travel-related expenses between Brisbane, Hobart and Melbourne in June 2019 and asked to respond to questions.
He requested an extension saying “nearly a year of email correspondence is not available in my archive”, with the reason for the loss of data remaining unexplained.
“It seems to be accepted between the parties that Dr Laming has lost access to his entire record of sent correspondence from March 2019 to January 2020 on his parliamentary email account,” Justice Derrington said.
Dr Laming claimed the expenses for travel to Tasmania were for a medical conference.
The authority started proceedings in the magistrates court to recover the money with Dr Laming agreeing in July 2023 to pay $20,935.25 and paying $5000 towards that about a month later.
"In my view, the taking of this course of action by Dr Laming is indicative of a decision by him to abandon any course that would seek to challenge the ruling by applying for judicial review," Justice Derrington said.
Dr Laming's application for the judicial review of the authority's March 2022 decision in August 2023 was more than 15 months later than the 28 days allowed.
Justice Derrington ruled against the Dr Laming's application for an extension of the time to call for the review.
She also found his complaint boiled down to one about the weight of evidence and the authority's conclusion as to the dominant purpose.
"The prospects of Dr Laming establishing that the ruling has not been made within the proper exercise of the power are poor," Justice Derrington said in her judgment.
Dr Laming was the member for the southeast Queensland seat of Bowman.
He was fined by the Federal Court in 2023 over social media posts he published in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election and has appealed that decision.
