MPs paid thousands to stay in their own homes under travel allowance rules

Aussie politicians are slugging the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars to sleep in homes they already own, and there’s no rule against it.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has refused to ban MPs from claiming a $291-a-night allowance to stay in their own apartment in Canberra if elected, a practice that has allowed scores of MPs to pay off their mortgages.

Canberra is the only capital city where federal MPs can choose to pocket their travel allowance (TA), even if they are staying at a house they own outright, as is the case for Mr Albanese, or at an apartment owned by a spouse.

Mr Albanese was probed about the politician’s perk on Melbourne radio on Monday after news.com.au revealed he was claiming travel allowance to stay in his own flat.

“Your travel allowance, $17,169 to stay in a flat of your own. Liberals do the same,” 3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell said.

“I know it’s within the rules but it just looks bizarre you get that sort of money as an allowance to stay in property you own. Can you change those rules?”

Mr Albanese said he didn’t plan to change the rules if he is elected Prime Minister. It follows revelations a Liberal MP spent three months in Canberra claiming TA during Melbourne’s lockdown.

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Labor leader Anthony Albanese has refused to ban MPs from claiming a $291-a-night allowance to stay in their own apartment in Canberra if elected. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

“Well the rules are there in terms of travel allowance. I don’t know why Tim Wilson was in Canberra for that long,” Mr Albanese said.

The broadcaster then interrupted Mr Albanese to ask if voters really accepted this practice as normal.

“I understand, but do you think the real world really thinks it’s acceptable to charge $17,000 just as a travel allowance to stay in your own house?” Mitchell asked.

“Well I think that the Remuneration Tribunal is arm’s length from politicians and I think that’s a very good idea to keep that Neil, to keep that arm’s length process for politicians so that we’re not determining our own entitlements,” he said.

“So you wouldn’t change that?” Mitchell replied.

“The Remuneration Tribunal determines those things, ah, not politicians, so I’m not in a position to change that,” Mr Albanese said.

While the Remuneration Tribunal does set individual nightly rates, there’s no rule forcing Mr Albanese and Mr Wilson to claim the cash for staying in their own apartments and houses.

They could simply choose not to take the money.

Screenshots show Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s travel expenses. Picture: Supplied

Liberal MP Tim Wilson is another MP who claims travel allowance to stay at his own apartment in Canberra.

In 2017, he purchased an apartment in Red Hill, one of the oldest and most exclusive suburbs in Canberra, for $369,000.

The property was purchased by an investment trust jointly controlled with his husband called the Bolger-Wilson Investment Pty Ltd.

According to his register of interest, Mr Wilson and his husband have a mortgage over the property with the Commonwealth Bank.

Five years later, real estate data suggest that the property has doubled in value to an estimated $705,000.

Liberal MP Tim Wilson. Picture: Supplied

According to his register of interest, Mr Wilson and his partner have a mortgage over the property. Picture: Supplied

During the same period, Mr Wilson has also claimed $138,729 in travel allowance to stay in his Canberra apartment.

Federal politicians are entitled to a tax-free $291-a-night travel allowance every night they stay in Canberra, in addition to their generous salaries and superannuation.

Because Mr Wilson’s Canberra pad is now worth $705,000, if he sold today he could almost double his money and fetch a cool $336,000 profit.

Plus, he’s pocketed $138,729 over five years to help pay off his own mortgage.

A spokesman for Mr Wilson told news.com.au he lived in the house whenever he was in Canberra and paid substantial land tax for the privilege.

“As declared on the register, a year after being elected the Assistant Minister and his then partner, now husband, purchased an apartment as the Assistant Minister lives about half the working year in Canberra,” he said.

“The property has a substantial mortgage, and he also incurs Canberra’s land tax, body corporate fees, and other utilities.

“Mr Wilson has not sought a valuation on the property, but any gain would need to deduct stamp duty and capital gains tax. Travel allowance is set by an independent authority, its payment is approved by the independent authority and the Assistant Minister will conform to the rules set.”

Joe Hockey with his wife, Melissa Babbage. Picture: Nick Klein

Treasurer Joe Hockey famously charged taxpayers $184,000 to sleep in his wife’s $2 million Canberra home over many years – a sum equivalent to more than half of the original sale price.

After claiming travel allowance for every night he’s slept at the family home for the last 15 years, he claimed $1000-a-month on average.

The figure was the same amount – $519-a-fortnight – that the Government provided unemployed people on Newstart payments to live on at the time.

The Hockey family’s astute purchase of the blue-ribbon real estate investment for $320,000 in 1997 paid huge dividends, with the property ultimately selling for more than seven times the original purchase price.

The arrangement allowed Mr Hockey to claim around $12,267 each year in travel allowance for 15 years to sleep in the family home.

Asked last week if his travel allowance had helped pay off the mortgage, Mr Hockey said, “I don’t know, I pay rent” – to his wife.

“You are living away from home and employers pay that,” Mr Hockey said.

“I think I was away 185 days last year and you try and have the same bed and you try and have the same place to leave a shirt.”

But because the socially minded Mr Hockey encouraged other MPs to share his house and pay rent to his wife when parliament sits, the costs to the taxpayers don’t stop there.

On the basis of a number of other MPs sleeping there including Bob Baldwin and former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson, who famously slept in the shed after his divorce for cut-price rent, taxpayers are likely to have spent more than original $320,000 asking price.

Dr Nelson slept in Mr Hockey’s converted shed without heating or a toilet, later revealing that he used a fire bucket when nature called.

“The house was a piece of Hockey mercantile genius,” former Liberal MP Ross Cameron told biographer Madonna King.

“Joe brings to the Treasury what I describe as an ancient Armenian sense of where the sweet spot of the deal is.”