Pollies spent more than $14m on travel
Kevin Rudd, as opposition leader, and his staff outspent former prime minister John Howard’s office in taxpayer-funded domestic travel during the first six months of last year.
But former foreign minister Alexander Downer was parliament’s most costly traveller, spending nearly $470,000 - including $158,000 on one overseas visit - according to figures released by the Department of Finance and Deregulation.
Overall, the nation’s parliamentarians received nearly $14 million in travel entitlements - including domestic and overseas airfares, accommodation expenses and car hire - between January 1 and June 30, 2007.
Travel by former prime ministers cost about $65,000 with Malcolm Fraser’s expenses making up a third of the total bill.
The figures reflect the busy, sometimes hectic, schedule of a new opposition leader just weeks into the job.
Mr Rudd and his 35 staffers received about $304,000 in domestic travel allowances in the first half of 2007, while Mr Howard’s office had domestic allowances of just $256,000 despite having 11 more staffers.
However, overseas trips costing $238,000 pushed Mr Howard’s total travel bill ahead of Mr Rudd’s, who spent just $31,440 out of the country.
The prime ministerial travel bill would have been higher if it had included the cost of using the Royal Australian Air Force’s VIP fleet to ferry Mr Howard around the country and overseas.
Mr Howard’s most expensive overseas trip was in March 2007, a nine-day visit to Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait that cost $140,000.
His visit to the East-Asia Summit in the Philippines cost $45,000.
A two-week visit by Mr Downer to the United States, where he spoke on Australia’s economic performance and participated at the West Coast Leadership Dialogue, was the single most expensive trip by a parliamentarian.
Former ministers Warren Truss (trade) spent $305,000 on overseas travel, Brendan Nelson (defence) $222,000, Peter Costello (treasurer) $116,000 and Malcolm Turnbull (environment) $110,000, while David Hawker - as speaker of the House of Representatives - spent $106,000.
Retired parliamentarians who chalked up big travel bills included former Hawke government minister Alan Griffiths ($15,600), former Keating government minister Gordon Bilney ($15,500), former Fraser government minister Fred Chaney ($15,100), and former Howard government minister Michael Wooldridge ($14,200).
Travel for retired MPs totalled more than $520,000, while taxpayers footed more than $38,000 for the travel of prime ministerial and ministerial widows.
A spokesman for Mr Rudd’s office said the figures did not include travel by Mr Howard on the prime ministerial VIP flights provided by the RAAF.
He said if the VIP flights were taken into consideration, Mr Howard would have spent a lot more on travel than Mr Rudd during the six months outlined in the report.
Posted
on
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 12:44 am under