Prime minister Scott Morrison has asked for the special minister of state, Alex Hawke, to investigate why assistant treasurer Stuart Robert has charged taxpayers thousands of dollars for his home internet bills in the past six months of reporting.
Fairfax Media reported on Friday that assistant treasurer Stuart Robert's residential internet bill was 20 times the average cost for MPs, working out at $1,845 per month over a six-month reporting period.
The home internet service cost is covered by taxpayers, and is published on the independent parliamentary expenses website.
In May, the monthly bill for Robert's home internet was more than $2,800.
Robert told Fairfax there was no National Broadband Network (NBN) connection to his Gold Coast home, nor was there any ADSL or other fixed line option, so he was forced to use a wireless service.
"This was the most stable, viable service available prior to NBN being installed," he said.
BuzzFeed News sought comment from Robert. In a statement released to journalists on Friday Roberts clarified that there was a fixed line service, but it was just too poor to use.
"My family home is located a significant distance from the telephone exchange, resulting in poor connectivity," he said, adding he had switched to a 4G connection.
"My internet, like many in semi-rural areas, was previously unreliable which interfered with my ability to perform my parliamentary and ministerial duties."
He said the appointment to install the NBN had been booked and that his charges would go down after that.
The suburb Robert lists his home residence in, Nerang, is about a 20 minute drive from the Gold Coast, or 12 kilometres away.
For the month of May, he reportedly used 300GB of data, 250GB over the monthly limit of 50GB, meaning he incurred excess charges.
He didn't say which company he was with, but said he was looking for a reliable service. Had he gone with Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra, the cost he could expect to pay for the company's 4G wireless home broadband solution is $89 per month for 80GB. If he used excess data at $10 per 1GB, it would have cost him $2,289 for the month.
Prime minister Scott Morrison told journalists at a press conference in Tasmania that he had asked special minister of state Alex Hawke to investigate the high costs.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten said at a press conference in Melbourne that it was up to others to determine whether Robert's charges had been reasonable, but suggested that the story had made it into the news due to Liberal Party in-fighting.
"I understand that [Robert] was Scott Morrison's numbers man, helping Scott Morrison get the top job, so I think this is one for the Liberals to talk about and again, I can't help wondering if there's a bit of Liberal infighting with some of these reports emerging and you know, I just want the Liberals to get on with their day job which is governing Australia," he said.
Both Hawke and Robert were brought into the ministry when Morrison became prime minister in August.
Morrison was in Queenstown in Tasmania to announce that the NBN would be completed in the state this year, three years after the former Labor government had originally planned.
Residents of Queenstown were slated to get a satellite service on the NBN, but the state and federal governments provided $18.5 million in additional funding to NBN Co to switch residents to a fibre-to-the-node service instead.