Choppergate

Overview

Choppergate refers to a political scandal regarding Australian Speaker of the House of Representatives Browyn Bishop’s use of taxpayer-funded travel entitlements for an expensive helicopter ride to a Liberal Party fundraiser. The exposure of Bishop’s travel financials in July 2015 inspired many to mock the politician on Twitter with image macros and photoshops.

Background

On July 15th, 2015, The Guardian^[1] reported that Bishop used tax-payer funds on an $88,000 trip to Europe and a $5,277 helicopter flight to a Liberal Party fundraiser in Melbourne, Australia. That day, Redditor Jakeoffski submitted The Guardian article to the /r/australia^[2] subreddit, where it gained over 900 votes (93% upvoted) and 190 comments in the first week.

Notable Developments

Bishop’s Press Conference

On July 18th, 2015, Bishop held a press conference regarding her travel expenses, in which she revealed she would not be resigning over the controversy and called the helicopter expense an “error of judgement” (shown below).

Online Reaction

In the coming days, many Twitter users mocked Bishop’s travel expenses in tweets using the hashtags “#choppergate”^[8] and “#BishopGate”^[9] (shown below). According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[3] the tags were used more than 2,600 and 34,700 times respectively over the following week.

News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to the scandal, including The New Daily,^[4] Daily Life,^[5] Sydney Morning Herald^[6] and Daily Mail.^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References