Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison says she has repaid the cost of cigarettes, a soft drink and a pink doughnut bought with a test travel card her office issued to a News Ltd journalist.
The Regional Transport Minister faced some awkward questions from her National Party predecessor, Sam Farraway, in budget estimates last week after she sought to discredit the Coalition's Regional Apprentice and University Students Travel Card scheme with the help of journalist James O'Doherty.
The Perrottet government introduced the $250 cards just before the March election to help regional students with travel costs such as buses and fuel, but a loophole allowed users to buy cigarettes, food and other items at service stations.
Budget estimates heard last week that Ms Aitchison's office had asked Transport for NSW customer systems and operations executive director Lewis Clarke for a test card and had given the card to Mr O'Doherty before the Daily Telegraph published the political reporter's story on June 27.
Mr Farraway, who was the relevant minister when the scheme was launched, suggested using the test card in this way amounted to a "fraud" on taxpayers.
"So, effectively, have you allowed taxpayers' funds to be used for a journalist to go and get some lollies, a soft drink and a packet of cigarettes?" he asked Ms Aitchison.
Ms Aitchison: "Look, my understanding was that I would be paying that money back."
Mr Farraway: "Have you paid that money back, Minister?"
Ms Aitchison: "I can't tell you off the top of my head because I'm not sure whether that has gone ... ."
Mr Farraway: "Can you take that on notice and come back to the committee?"
Ms Aitchison: "Yes, I will check that. If I have not, if there has been an oversight, because it has been a pretty busy couple of months, I will definitely be paying that back. But that was always the intention."
Ms Aitchison said her office had a "process in place to check that this card and the claims were real" because Mr Farraway had told Parliament the card could not be misused.
"I wanted to make sure for myself. Let's test it, right?" she told the hearing.
Asked why she had asked a journalist and not Transport for NSW to test the card, Ms Aitchison said: "Having a secret look at it from the department again and a test that was not in the public domain would not have answered those questions."
Mr Farraway asked Ms Aitchison if she would advise the Premier that "you and your office have possibly committed fraud and broken the law".
Ms Aitchison: "No, I won't, because I don't have a legal opinion that says that I have or that my office has done anything wrong. It's not the case. I'm not going to make a legal judgment about that."
Ms Aitchison suspended applications for the student travel card after the Telegraph ran its story, arguing it was too easily misused, and Labor scrapped the scheme in the September budget.
Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray told the estimates hearing that his department used "a number of test cards ... for practical and probity testing at retailers".
"As they are test cards, they do not have the same guidelines as user cards," he said.
"One of the test cards was provided to the minister's office for the purposes of a test earlier this year.
"I'm advised that Minister Aitchison indicated that she would reimburse Transport for any goods purchased in a test using a third party.
"We are now checking on the status of that payment and the administration of it, and I'm happy to advise the hearing of further detail in regards to that once we have it."
Ms Aitchison's office said on Tuesday that she had repaid the money.
Mr Clarke said he could not recall Ms Aitchison's office telling him the card would be given to a journalist but the cost of testing was "part of the administration and the roll-out of the scheme".
He said issuing a test card to a ministerial office was "not necessarily an uncommon thing to do" and Mr Farraway's office had asked for and received test cards when he was in office.
"Previous ministers' offices have asked for test cards to be made available for certain circumstances, for example, maybe media events," he said.
