Independent MP Monique Ryan took 27 business class flights, most from Melbourne to Canberra

A politician who has campaigned for climate change has been caught flying in business class 27 times in one year at the expense of taxpayers. 

According to documents made public under freedom of information, Kooyong MP Monique Ryan made 27 business class flights totalling $28,000.

Most of the flights were hour-long trips from Melbourne to Canberra and all on the taxpayers’ dime.

Ms Ryan is known for her passion in fighting climate change, but appeared to have no hesitation in taking several business class flights – which are known to produce three times as much carbon emissions than economy class. 

Most of the flights were hour-long trips from Melbourne to Canberra and all on the taxpayers’ dime (stock image)

Ms Ryan was elected in 2022, in place of then deputy Liberal leader and treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, ousting him from his blue-ribbon inner-Melbourne seat.

No other teal flew business class in the last year anywhere near as much as Ms Ryan.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel took business class flights four times, Sophie Scamps once and the rest didn’t at all.

Ms Ryan defended her actions and told Sydney Morning Herald she had acted within the Inter-Parliamentary Expenses Authority guidelines.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Ms Ryan for comment. 

It is the latest controversy for the new minister who only recently agreed to a settlement with her former chief of staff Sally Rugg for $100,000.

The federal court case in January alleged Ms Rugg was required to work ‘unreasonable’ additional hours, breaching the Fair Work Act, and that the commonwealth took ‘adverse action’ when Ms Ryan dismissed her from her position.

Court documents revealed a breakdown in the relationship between the pair over work hours and the situation worsened when Ms Rugg flew home to self-isolate after contracting Covid-19 in late November.

In Ms Rugg’s statement of claim stated that from July to December she ‘regularly worked’ more than 65 hours a week which included working weekends and averaged out to be on average 58 hours a week.

Ms Rugg is a Melbourne-based LGBTQ+ activist and feminist who played a crucial role in the yes campaign for the marriage equality plebiscite, while working for GetUP.

Ms Ryan defended her actions and told Sydney Morning Herald she had acted within the Inter-Parliamentary Expenses Authority guidelines (stock image)

She then took a position as executive director of Change.org before transitioning into the position of Ms Ryan’s chief of staff.

The $100,000 agreed settlement involved no admission of fault by the member for Kooyong or the federal government.

Before transitioning into politics Ms Ryan was the director of the neurology department at the Royal Children’s Hospital for eight years. 

In her campaign to run for the seat of Kooyong, Ms Ryan stated she was increasingly concerned about the effects of climate change and how it would affect future generations. 

‘I was worried that my children might not have the opportunities I’ve had because our environment and economy might be blighted by the effect of human-induced climate change,’ Ms Ryan states on her MP website.

‘I felt that I could no longer look away from the incipient disasters of rising sea levels, warming of the land, and species extinction.’