Given Jess Wilson says Victoria is broke, I’m starting a series looking at some Libs' approach to taxpayer-funded fiscal restraint. @Dave Hughes is very welcome to follow along. First up: Matthew Guy, Shadow Minister for Vic Public Transport, and apparently, much of Earth. /1

In this term of Parliament, Matt Guy's parliamentary travels have included: Argentina. Malaysia. India. Chile. Brazil. Argentina again. Paraguay. Brazil again. Argentina again. For a Shadow Minister for Victorian Public Transport, the portfolio has developed quite a foreign policy. /2

These are the people demanding Victoria tighten its belt. Matthew Guy appears to have interpreted that as ensuring the belt remains securely fastened while the seatbelt sign is illuminated. 3/

September 2023: Buenos Aires. Four full days studying trains, buses and urban renewal. Guy declared the trip worthwhile and announced his intention to return the following year. Reader, he returned (with a Lib friend). 4/

Guy reports using the Buenos Aires underground "almost a dozen times" in four days. Possibly the most intensive exposure a Victorian Liberal has had to public transport in years. 5/

April 2024: Malaysia and India. Kuala Lumpur. Delhi. Chandigarh. Ludhiana. Amritsar. The Shadow Minister for Victorian Public Transport was expanding the portfolio. Quite substantially. 6/

In India, Guy met a retired magistrate about mandatory sentencing, which he says reinforced his own views. Apparently the Shadow Minister for Victorian Public Transport had temporarily expanded his brief to Punjabi criminal law. How he ended up in the river remains unclear. 7/

Also: a hospitality college tour and meetings with Punjab's heads of Counter Intelligence and Domestic Intelligence. Jess Wilson’s public transport policy process is considerably more James Bond than I expected. 8/

August 2024. There remained public transport somewhere on Earth Matthew Guy hadn’t personally inspected. So: Chile, Brazil and Argentina. Another parliamentary study tour. Fiscal restraint was travelling separately. 9/

In Santiago, Guy toured the Presidential Palace AND took a guided cemetery tour, suggesting Melbourne might learn from its success as a tourist attraction. Trains. Sentencing. Spies. Cemeteries. A remarkably adventurous interpretation of "Shadow Minister for Public Transport". 10/

2025: Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. Again. Guy has now visited South America four times since 2019. At this point Buenos Aires should probably just give the Member for Bulleen an electorate office. 11/

In Brazil, Guy visited the Court of Accounts and praised its powers to stop wasteful public spending. While he was on an overseas parliamentary study tour. Sometimes satire writes itself. Sometimes it books a flight and becomes its own cautionary tale. 12/

MPs sometimes need to travel. What they don’t get to do is repeatedly send the Member for Bulleen around the globe on parliamentary study tours and then adopt a pose of moral outrage whenever somebody else spends public money. 13/

If @Dave Hughes’s concern is actually waste rather than politics, this should be right at the top of the pile. Unless, of course, 'waste' is just the word Dave uses for spending by people he doesn’t like. 14/

So next time Jess Wilson or Dave Hughes tells you government needs to tighten its belt, remember Matthew Guy. Argentina. Malaysia. India. Chile. Brazil. Paraguay in a single term. Apparently the belt-tightening starts after boarding. 15/

And because @Dave Hughes so rarely troubles his claims with supporting evidence, mine is linked below. Matthew Guy’s parliamentary expense disclosures. Public. Verifiable. And annoyingly laborious to compile. Substantiation does require some work. /end https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/members/matthew-guy/?tab=panel-reporting…