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Ley inspected property nine months before 'on-a-whim' apartment buy

Stood-down minister Sussan Ley inspected a Gold Coast property in 2014 before making her "on a whim" purchase of a unit while travelling on official business nine months later.

Ms Ley claimed "no rules were broken" as she stepped aside Monday following revelations of more than two-dozen flights to and from the Gold Coast in a two-year period, claimed as entitlements and official business.

The health minister had claimed she purchased an apartment on impulse while on a 2015 taxpayer-funded trip to Queensland.

But the Herald Sun reports she had made an unsuccessful bid for a property nine months earlier.

Ministerial colleagues doubt Sussan Ley will be able to return following further expense-claim revelations. Source: AAP

Adrienne and Stewart McEachran have told the newspaper the Albury-based MP and her husband Graham Johnston inspected their property on the Gold Coast hinterland in August and again in early September 2014.

Government documents reveal Ms Ley billed taxpayers more than $2000 for a long weekend Gold Coast trip from September 5 to 8 that year, including expense claims for flights, car hire and $720 in travel allowances, the paper reports.

Cabinet colleagues believe Ms Ley will struggle to return to the frontbench given the similarities to former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop's "choppergate" entitlements scandal that emerged after 2014.

The episode has spurred federal Labor MPs who are continuing to press for Ley's scalp over the impulse-buy $795,000 apartment, purchased from a Liberal National Party donor.

It has also been revealed she claimed travel costs to the Gold Coast for New Year's Eve celebrations in 2013 and 2014 at the invitation of one of Australia's richest women, Sarina Russo, founder of recruitment agency Job Access and a Liberal Party donor.

Ms Ley said she flew to the Gold Coast at taxpayers' expense at the invitation of a "prominent Queensland businesswoman" for a business lunch on New Year's Eve in 2013 and her New Year's Eve event in 2014.

A pic of Sussan Ley and Sarina Russo posted in June 2015. Source: Instagram/sarinarussoglobal

Ms Russo says she supports Ms Ley's statement and is happy to help the investigation.

"I respect and admire the Minister. She has worked diligently in every portfolio and has made a difference," Ms Russo said in a statement.

"Every time I met with her it related to her portfolio or the government at hand.

Ms Ley has stood aside from the ministry pending an investigation into her expense claims. Source: AAP

"Our focus should be to continue to make Australia great and this is what the minister has always done."

Ms Russo won multi-million dollar contracts with federal government in 2015.

Ms Ley is forgoing ministerial pay while the prime minister's department examines her travel claims.

She fronted the media on Monday morning for the first time since the scandal emerged last week, maintaining she had done nothing wrong.

"I'm very confident that the investigations will demonstrate that no rules were broken whatsoever," she told reporters in Albury.

Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos will step in as acting health minister.

Labor's shadow special minister of state Don Farrell insists Ms Ley should resign completely or be sacked.

"The minister has confused her public interests with her private interests," he told Sky News.

He said there was no point having a code of conduct for ministers if there were no penalties when it is breached.

Today's top news stories- January 10