QUEENSLAND taxpayers have been charged almost $1.5 million to fund the events, entertainment, conference and workshop bill for the State Development Department.
When pressed about the expenses at Budget Estimates today, Acting Director-General of the department Toni Power revealed $43,209 of this was spent on entertainment, which includes food and alcohol costs.
“Entertainment expenditure is only occurred for official functions involving government, business and industry or community representatives, with the objective of industry development and investment attraction,” she said.
“Entertainment is identified as providing an employee or associates with foods and or drinks.”
When asked by the LNP’s state development spokesman Andrew Powell about how much was spent on alcohol, Ms Power said the cost could not be easily identified without an in depth manual investigation.
But she did confirm that any expenditure on alcohol would have been spent on food as well as drinks.
In total, there was $1.477 million spent by the department in the past financial year on conference, workshops, events and entertainment.
The government claims about 54.8 per cent of this expenditure was on staff training and professional development, such as securing White Ribbon Australia accreditation.
Mr Powell said the almost $1.5 million spent on hospitality was a staggering amount that highlighted “Labor's wrong priorities and their obsession with wasting taxpayers' money”.
"Annastacia Palaszczuk is out of touch – she'd rather waste taxpayers' money while Queensland struggles with the highest unemployment rate in mainland Australia,” he said.
The government has confirmed the department’s 2019-20 budget for conferences, workshops, catering and hospitality is under review.
– Jack McKay
