National News Network
The controversial Ambassador for First Nations People had revealed a personal quest to “prove white Australia wrong” while racking up a taxpayer-funded travel bill now approaching $350,000.
A new official log of Justin Mohamed’s overseas travel shows his jetsetting cost nearly $100,000 between February and October this year, including more than $40,000 for business-class fares to Japan, Switzerland and the US.
Mr. Mohamed was appointed by Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong in March 2023. The role pays $400,000 a year and is not found anywhere else in the world. It is backed by an office with 10 staff and a four-year budget of $13.6 million.
The overseas travel component of the job has been controversial since 2024 when then Opposition leader Peter Dutton declared he would abolish the position.
More recently, leading Aboriginal academic and human rights lawyer Hannah McGlade said the ambassador role had “a documented history of extensive and expensive travel and hotels without proof of real outcomes to improve the lives of Aboriginal people.”
In his first 20 months, Mr Mohamed’s international trips cost about $250,000.
The tally is now touching $350,000 after a new document disclosed the price of Mr Mohamed’s foreign diplomacy in 2025.
The document – released under the Freedom of Information Act – shows ten trips between February and October this year.
The most expensive venture was to Japan, in August, which cost $22,341, including $17,566 for his airfares to Osaka and Sapporo. The flights were expensive because they began in a remote part of the Northern Territory.
Kong first class and didn’t need Ernie
Dingo for a guide
In July, he went to Geneva, racking up a bill of $19,002, including $13,810 for flights.
The third-most expensive trip was to New York, in April, which cost $15,234, including $10,031 for flights.
Mr Mohamed has been to Vanuatu five times, supporting work on a bilateral agreement. One of the trips there was for one night only. His airfares for that trip cost $3,674. The cost of the fifth Vanuatu trip is unknown as it only occurred this month.
Mr Mohamed revealed some of his personal motivations in a video interview with The Indigenous Business Review in June.
Talking about his early days in Bundaberg, Queensland, he said: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the differences between them and the rest of the community, basically you saw it every day, and you lived it.
“So as I kind of grew up I had a desire to kind of do better, to prove white Australia wrong.”
The video did not provide any additional context for the comment.
Further explanation from Mr Mohamed, Senator Wong’s office and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade got no response.
On the ambassador’s travel expenses, DFAT repeated comments first published in November that “First Nations international engagement is a unique element of Australia’s national power that cannot be replicated by other countries.”
DFAT did not explain why Mr Mohamed went to Vanuatu for one night.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the Coalition does not support the Ambassador for First Nations People role.
“Our focus is on policies that deliver real improvements on the ground, not symbolic roles with high travel costs,” Senator Cash said.
The new detail of Mr Mohamed’s ballooning travel bill emerged a week after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese scrapped taxpayer-funded business class flights and domestic travel perks for the families of federal politicians.