Retiring Southcott’s farewell tour
Liberal MP Andrew Southcott is touring South-East Asia on a taxpayer-funded parliamentary delegation, despite having announced his retirement from federal parliament at the forthcoming election, InDaily can reveal.
Southcott last month announced his surprise decision to vacate his southern suburbs seat of Boothby, just weeks after losing a bid to replace Bronwyn Bishop as parliamentary speaker.
He confirmed to InDaily last night he was on a cross-party delegation, taking in Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos. He said the trip was “pre-arranged more than six months ago”, but conceded he considered withdrawing.
“It’s something that I gave some thought to but it was easier to continue with the arrangement,” he said.
“It’s something that was arranged long before (I announced my retirement) and in the end they were actually struggling for people to go on the delegation, so on balance I decided to go on the trip.”
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While he has kept quiet about the trip on Twitter thus far, photos have been tweeted by parliamentarians in host countries, with the delegation receiving coverage on the local news in Malaysia:
He defended the cost to taxpayers given his impending departure.
“As you’re aware, I’m planning to continue in parliament until the next election, which I anticipate will be 12 months away,” he said.
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But his decision may cause political headaches for his prospective successor, with Liberal nominations for preselection closing last week.
Boothby, which Southcott has held since 1996, is expected to be targeted strongly by the Nick Xenophon Team, and was considered vulnerable given the strong polling of the minor party, which is yet to reveal its candidates. InDaily revealed last month that internal Liberal polling had Xenophon’s party running second in at least four South Australian seats.
Southcott said taxpayers would benefit from the tour, a “bilateral parliamentary delegation” visiting ASEAN countries at their invitation to discuss issues such as higher education and health care, along with “meeting with various members of parliament as well”.
“We’ve got a busy itinerary,” said Southcott.
“We’re really going through a whole range of meetings (and) what we do is we produce a report…which will be tabled in parliament.”
Southcott is travelling with fellow Liberal Warren Entsch and Labor MP for Perth Alannah MacTiernan, who last month accused the Coalition of “ripping off” the West Australian shipbuilding industry “to paper over some problems they’ve got in South Australia”.
Ironically, Premier Jay Weatherill had to apologise to Southcott in 2013 after a Labor staffer falsely accused him of holidaying in Fiji instead of campaigning.
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