Two senior Australian ministers were forced to quit yesterday amid allegations of expenses fraud and cover-up in a major new embarrassment for the 18-month-old government of the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard.
The resignations of the Transport Minister, Mr John Sharp, and the Administrative Services Minister, Mr David Jull, mean four ministers have been forced out over sleaze accusations, while another four MPs who backed Mr Howard face fraud charges.
Mr Howard told parliament he believed the latest resignations were appropriate but he accepted them with regret and had acted "promptly and appropriately" in asking the auditor-general to conduct an urgent investigation.
"In all of my dealings with both men I have never had any reason to doubt their personal honesty or probity," he added.
In a political storm that blew up 24 hours earlier, the Labour opposition demanded the resignations after it was revealed Mr Sharp repaid almost 9,000 Australian dollars (£4,411) in unjustified travel allowance claims.
The allegations emerged in a report by Channel Nine television which said Mr Sharp had repaid the money after claiming 29,000 dollars (£14,215) in allowances for 144 nights away from home including 47 nights he could not substantiate.
The repayments had not previously been disclosed despite the fact that the travel expenses claims of all MPs from 1992 to 1997 were tabled by Mr Jull in May.
Australia's republican movement has won the unlikely backing of a man who was once Queen Elizabeth's official representative in the country. Sir Zelman Cowen, who represented the British monarch as governor-general from 1977 to 1982, told an audience in the US that he now supported the idea of Australia having an Australian head of state.