Why didn't The Age include Gillard in their expenses coverage? The Age has had a jihad against the Abbott Government. Take its one-eyed attack on the use of VIP flights by Liberals in the former Howard Government: Senior figures in the Abbott government were among those who enjoyed ""free"" travel on VIP military aircraft to fly to Canberra for parliamentary sitting weeks, amassing a taxpayer bill of more than $2 million, Defence Department records reveal. Former ministers in the Howard government including Peter Costello, Nick Minchin and Amanda Vanstone used ""special purpose"" VIP military flights to commute to Canberra with private staff members, despite having unlimited business-class air travel with Qantas as part of their ministerial perks... Beyond prime ministerial travel - including then acting prime minister Wayne Swan's trip to the 2010 NRL and AFL grand finals - Fairfax Media could not find systemic use of VIP jets by Labor MPs during the Rudd and Gillard governments. Yet today another Fairfax paper, in a report on how Julia Gillard plotted to topple Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, reveals this: They shared a VIP flight from Melbourne to Canberra. They were the only passengers. "All the way from Melbourne to Canberra, she tried to inveigle me into her plan," says Ferguson, then the minister for resources and energy in the Rudd Cabinet. Reader Barry writes to Media Watch: Dear MediaWatch, On October 27 this year Fairfax Media published a front page story attacking former Howard Government Ministers for using VIP flights when commercial flights were available. In the story, Fairfax said they could find no systematic use of VIP jets by Rudd-Gillard Ministers. The email trail below with the Fairfax reporter for the story is self-explanatory. It shows that Labor Ministers Martin Ferguson and Julia Gillard have conceded that they took a VIP flight as ministers and that this was overlooked because the reporter believed Julia Gillard was Prime Minister at the time (and therefore exempt from normal entitlement provisions). She was not Prime Minister... This warrants examination by Media Watch. Kind regards, Barry The emails: Email to Mark Hawthorne, The Age, 18 November 2013 Hi Mark, You both made a very big deal about former Howard Government Ministers using VIP jets to fly from Melbourne to Canberra when commercial flights were available. I'm wondering whether you will be similarly outraged by Martin Ferguson's revelation in Fairfax media today that he and Julia Gillard got a VIP flight from Melbourne to Canberra on Sunday 20 June 2010 and that they were the only passengers on board? Fairfax reports today that: Martin Ferguson says she (Gillard) first approached him to test his support on Sunday, June 20, 2010, three days before her challenge to Rudd. I look forward to your front page coverage of Labor's "misuse" of VIP flights. Cheers, Barry Email from Mark Hawthorne 18 Nov 2013 Hi Barry Thanks for the email. The regulations governing the use of VIP flights are quite explicit when it comes to the Prime Minister, who gets to military rather than domestic flights without restriction. In writing our stories we have not included or mentioned the hundreds of VIP flights taken by John Howard for that very reason - the rules are different for the PM. We also spent hours trawling through Defence records pertaining to cabinet use of VIP aircraft during the Rudd-Gillard years. Thanks for the interest. Mark Email to Mark Hawthorne 18 Nov 2013 Thanks Mark, She wasn't the Prime Minister. She was canvassing Ferguson to become PM on the VIP flight. That flight would have flown empty on a Sunday to pick them up and return them to Canberra. Ferguson has fessed up that Labor did precisely what you condemned Costello, Vanstone etc for. Apologies Barry - just checked the dates, out by 4 days Mark Hawthorne Senior Editor The Age