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Half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money pushed to Liberal party donor

Article image for Half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money pushed to Liberal party donor

A Liberal MP has spent over half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money on printing work by a company that donates to the party, and doesn’t even own a printer.

The report from Buzzfeed says Liberal MP Alex Hawke spent an estimated $500,000 of taxpayers’ money with printing company Zion Graphics.

Buzzfeed political reporter Alice Workman tells John Stanley Zion graphics is run by Rudy Limantono, who is “the president of the Bella Vista Liberal party branch” and also a party donor.

“He runs this printing company that actually doesn’t own a commercial printer, so doesn’t do any of the actual printing,” she says.

Instead, Zion graphics outsources the work to another printing company and charges a premium to Mr Hawke, well above the actual price of the printing job.

“The bigger part of this story is the amount of money the people are spending on printing,” says Ms Workman.

Mr Hawke is considerably outspending his Liberal party colleagues in neighbouring seats, despite holding the safe Liberal seat of Mitchell.

“Between April this year and June last year, Alex Hawke spent nearly $300,000 on printing and communications.

“During the same time period Scott Morrison… spent only $179,000. And Tony Abbott spent only $184,000.

“Alex Hawke is spending nearly double… and he’s in a pretty safe area.

“There’s questions now being asked about whether he’s pushing all of this taxpayer money to this Liberal party donor.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview

JOHN STANLEY
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