Australian taxpayers have become an ATM for the public service | David Penberthy

Remember when Paul Keating was a “wowser” for putting an end to tax-funded boozy business lunches, writes David Penberthy. It’s time for another round.

Way back in 1986, Treasurer Paul Keating was labelled a wowser and a pariah when he put an end to the long lunch through the introduction of the fringe benefits tax.

Up until then businesses could claim all manner of boozy and borderline social activities as a networking opportunity and write them off through the tax system.

This total lurk left the workers of Australia underwriting the lifestyles of fat blokes in Sydney with burst capillaries who loved nothing more than heading to Sussex St on a Friday for prawn toast, a million Tsingtaos and a mountain of lemon chicken, then ending the evening at Madam Flossie’s House of Tarts in a Surry Hills alleyway. It was, of course, a total rort and Keating was right to end it.

In 2025 the world has changed. Or has it?

While the days of using the taxpayer to indulge your enthusiasm for strippers and succulent Chinese meals might be gone, there is one place where the public purse provides a handy source of funding for entertainment and travel. It’s not in the private sector but the public sector itself.

Former Treasurer and Prime Minister Paul Keating giving thumbs up gesture during his address to the Labor Business Forum lunch at the Dom Polski Centre in Adelaide in 1986.

There have been several stories this past month which when you tally them up help explain why government spending in Australia is off the charts.

In isolation all these stories might look like financial drops in the ocean but together paint a picture where while every small business in Australia watches every cent, money is seen as an abstract concept in government and the public sector.

My favourite of these stories involves the ABC confirming this week that it had spent $45,000 on a farewell party for its former managing director David Anderson at its Sydney headquarters.

Now $45,000 will get you a lot of grog and canapes, so for this reason the ABC explained that the figure also included the cost of travel for some of David Anderson’s interstate colleagues who wanted to fly to Sydney to bid him farewell.

Here’s a question, if they liked their old boss so much: Why didn’t they get off their arses and pay for the flights themselves?

I flew to Sydney three weeks ago for a mate’s retirement party and paid for the flights and accommodation myself. It cost me about $1200 and it’s a price I was happy to pay given I love the bloke.

You wouldn’t dream of asking your company to spring for the cost, let alone billing it back to the taxpayer – yet, apparently, not at the ABC.

If it’s profligacy you really want the place to be is Creative Australia, formerly known as the Arts Council, which has racked up $636,126 on 101 overseas trips in just two years. That’s a staggering amount of money, much of it presumably spent on flying to the Left Bank in Paris to watch a performance artist who can eat an entire bicycle.

There appears to be a view when it comes to travel in the public sector that flights simply cost what flights cost.

While the rest of us shop around on Trivago and Expedia for the best deal, these taxpayer-funded trips are booked blindly with no regard for costs.

Former ABC Managing Director David Anderson. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Australian Minister for Communications, Anika Wells addresses the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

As per the revelation this week that Communications Minister Anika Wells and two of her staff flew on a whim to New York to tell the world how good our new social media laws are, with the tickets for the three of them costing $34,427, $38,166 and $22,236 respectively.

It’s a grand total of almost $100,000, which in Ms Gallagher’s defence might be less than the Coalition spent flying its MPs back to Canberra to argue about net zero because they were too hopeless to sort it out during a regular sitting week.

There’s been a story running in SA for weeks about three mayors who flew to Rio de Janeiro last month to attend a climate change conference, their attendance apparently vital to Adelaide’s chances to host COP, which we now are not holding anyway.

Coverage of the story has been marked by a remarkable brand of indignation from the mayors in question about who was paying for the trip and how much it cost.

Such questions have been billed as the agenda-driven persecution of white men in the hate media who fail to see the planet is burning – as opposed to the actual reason, namely that there is a genuine appetite on the part of ratepayers to know how much of their money has been you-know-whatted up against the wall in the name of saving mother Earth.

Let’s end on a positive note.

Let’s pay credit to WA’s City of Joondalup former councillor Nige Jones who belatedly realised the errors of the ways when he came to Adelaide for a conference and was having trouble sleeping so decided to get a beer at the Crazy Horse, which bills itself as “Australia’s most iconic gentlemen’s club for over 40 years”.

Harking back to the long lunch era of the 1980s, Nige made the mistake of keeping the receipt for his beer and then trying to claim it back on expenses from the ratepayers of Joondalup.

“His claim for reimbursement of an alcoholic beverage at the Crazy Horse Revue and attendance at this establishment while on city-funded travel does not meet the standards of conduct expected of a council member,” a censure notice published by the City of Joondalup read.

You don’t say. It should be a rule for others to live by. Be like Nige.

It’s good enough for those of us in the private sector to pay, rather than treating the taxpayers like an ATM, as if all of these outlays are so small as to be of no fiscal consequence.

Originally published as Australian taxpayers have become an ATM for the public service | David Penberthy