Health Minister Sussan Ley has refused to apologised for claiming tax-funded travel entitlements for trips to Disneyland, Coachella and the flagship Louis Vuitton store in Paris, claiming “you never know where health problems exist”.

She said the tax-payer funded trips were within the rules, as public servants can do whatever they want.

“Like it or not, health issues don’t just happen in third world countries like Penrith,” she said. “We’ve heard damning reports of Australian citizens receiving upset stomachs after riding Space Mountain at Disney too soon after eating a hotdog, getting sunburnt at Coachella, and overspending at Louis Vuitton, and I simply had to put in the hard yards to check things out for myself.”

The statement follows revelations she also bought luxury apartments in California and Paris “on a whim” while visiting these locations on “official health businesses”.

Nobody in parliament has called for her resignation, with her supporters noting “it’s all in a day’s work for us tireless public servants”.