Anthony Albanese has sidestepped calls for reform or an inquiry into politicians’ expenses and travel perks, saying he is more focused on the under-16s social media ban than growing community outrage over MPs using taxpayer funds to fly their spouses to football games, cricket matches and exclusive dinners.
At a press conference held at a school in Canberra to promote the under-16s social media ban, Albanese was asked repeatedly about Guardian Australia’s reporting that senior politicians like himself, Anika Wells and Don Farrell enjoy essentially “unlimited” entitlements to fly their spouses around the country. Twice he said: “I haven’t changed the rule.”
“They’ve been in place for some time and we haven’t changed the rules. We haven’t added to any entitlements,” Albanese said. He declined multiple times to answer whether his Labor government would now change those rules, saying “I’m not the finance minister”.
Wells, the minister for communications and sport, has referred her own spending – including family travel costs to bring her husband to football grand finals, cricket Test matches and the Formula One – to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority for review. Senior Labor sources told the Guardian the government would likely wait for the IPEA to conduct its audit of Wells’ travel claims before taking any further action. An imminent broader review of the rules was not expected.
The IPEA will look specifically at Wells’ travel claims. Previous audit reports on spending have not made recommendations on the travel rules themselves, only about specific examples being investigated.
It is unclear how long the Wells review will take. Previous audits of politicians have often taken several months to complete, and up to a year for the findings to be made public. The IPEA was contacted for comment.
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There are some concerns in Labor about how the issue is being viewed by the public. One Labor MP said they had been approached by constituents frustrated over the use of entitlements.
“I’ve been fielding inquiries in my electorate all week … people are really upset,” they said.
All federal parliamentarians are eligible to claim the equivalent of nine business-class trips between their home city and Canberra, as well as three economy-equivalent trips to other locations in Australia. However, as Guardian Australia revealed on Thursday, an explanatory document about the regulations says spousal travel for ministers is “relevantly unlimited”.
Albanese and other ministers have repeatedly stated that travel expenses are regulated “at arm’s length” by the IPEA, which is an independent body. But the regulations putting limits on parliamentarians’ spending, set in 2017 under the former Turnbull Coalition government, are “issued by the authority of the minister for finance”. They could be changed by the federal government of the day, with the relevant power in the current Labor government resting with Farrell, the special minister of state.
The Guardian revealed this week Farrell had charged taxpayers $9,000 over three years for family travel costs after being invited to football games, tennis matches and an exclusive dinner at Uluru. Albanese also charged taxpayers about $2,800 for family travel costs on weekends when he was given free tickets to the AFL grand final, rugby league State of Origin and Australian Open tennis.
The federal opposition and crossbenchers have backed a review or examination of spending rules.
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, accused Albanese of having “failed the basic test of leadership”.
“Instead of standing up for taxpayers, he has closed ranks around a minister accused of wasting public money. When integrity is tested, this government reaches for the curtain every time, choosing secrecy over accountability,” she said on social media.
The prime minister conceded that “community expectations are important” around political spending. But Albanese defended family reunion travel entitlements as important to help encourage people, especially those with young families, to enter politics.
“When my son was a bub … I used to bring him down to parliament when parliament sat. That made it possible for me to do my job when he was a bub,” he said.
“These are rules that have been set for some period of time … in terms of family reunion, to enable people to actually engage with their partners.”
Albanese did not indicate any plans to change travel expense rules. Instead, he said the social media ban was his priority – and predicted the change would be among “the five biggest things that we did” in the tenure of his government.
“What I’ve been focused on this week, to be frank, is one of the biggest reforms that we will do in the entire time that we’re in office. That has been totally my focus. My focus is not on entitlements and the finance minister’s rules. To be frank, my focus has been on this,” he said.
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