DFAT officials have today admitted they were aware Wyatt Roy was in Iraq up to a fortnight before news of his visit became public, directly challenging Turnbull Government claims it had no prior knowledge of the travel plans of the former LNP MP.
The Government has insisted it was unaware of Mr Roys movements until news broke of his visit to Iraq on September 29.
NEIL MITCHELL: Did he tell you he was going?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
NEIL MITCHELL: Do you think he should be investigated now? I mean, theres an organisation, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK operate in that area. Did he have dealings with them? They are a prescribed organisation.
PRIME MINISTER: I just dont know any more about Wyatt Roys visit than what has been in the media.
Radio 3AW, 30 September 2016
But in Senate Estimates today, officers from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade revealed that Mr Roy told Australias Ambassador to Israel of his plans on September 15 a fortnight earlier.
This was on the same visit where the Ambassador tweeted pictures of the former LNP member at our embassy in Tel Aviv.
Even more astonishingly, on 20 September one of Mr Roys associates in Iraq contacted the Deputy Head of Mission in Iraq and told him the former LNP member was actually in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish regional government area of Iraq.
Erbil is less than 200 kilometres from the Mosul declared area, a fact that should have set off alarm bells across the Government.
It is simply not credible that Foreign Minister was not made aware that her former colleague was in Iraq and seeking support from her department for meetings in this extremely contentious and dangerous area.
The Foreign Minister must now come clean on what prior knowledge she had of Mr Roys trip.
War zones are not places for people to act out their boyhood fantasies.
Mr Roys actions were an unwise and dangerous act for a former LNP member of Parliament, who should be expected to know better.
The Foreign Minister cannot wash her hands of this scandal by issuing a statement.
This is her Liberal Party colleague, a man she once remarked would one day be Prime Minister. She must give a full and frank account of her knowledge of Mr Roys movements in Iraq.