Federal Government departments hoarding unused iPhones, iPads, computers and TVs

SOME 60,000 pieces of taxpayer funded equipment including iPhones, iPads, computers and TVs worth $9m are collecting dust in government buildings.

E waste collection at Gosford.

SIXTY thousand pieces of taxpayer funded electrical equipment, including iPhones, iPads, computers and televisions are collecting dust in government buildings across the country.

Federal bureaucrats have been exposed as some of the nation’s worst hoarders, with more than $9 million in electrical devices remaining “unallocated” – meaning they are not being used by a public servant and are sitting in storage.

Despite the government’s pledge to end the ‘age of entitlement’, the list of tens of thousands of unused electrical goods, obtained by News Corp through Senate Estimates, includes more than 4000 PCs, more than 1000 tablet devices, hundreds of smartphones and a number of televisions.

In some cases, Federal departments are even paying storage fees for the wasted devices.

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E waste ... the Federal Government has more than 4000 unused computers like this sitting in storage. Picutre: File/Supplied

Both the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Tax Office confirmed they were each spending in excess of $100,000 a year on storage costs for their unallocated electrical devices.

Stocked up .. the government has iPads waiting to be used. Picture: News Corp Australia

While DFAT did not attempt to estimate how many pieces of electrical equipment it was hoarding in storage, it did confirm there was “442 palettes worth of equipment”.

Defence has emerged as having the biggest stockpile of unallocated electrical goods, currently storing 40,000 unallocated ICT devices.

Unused ... iPhones are also not being used by government departments. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

Other Departments with a significant number of unused pieces of electrical equipment are the Human Services Department, the ATO, the Department of Health and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Abbott government stressed that each Department and agency is responsible for managing its own collection of unallocated devices.

While government sources say it is necessary to have a stockpile of unallocated phones and iPads handy to facilitate the quick replacement of faulty devices, questions are now being raised about whether the Federal Government should be required to be more efficient with the electrical devices being purchased with taxpayers’ money.

Senior Labor frontbencher Joe Ludwig seized on the waste list and said Prime Minister Tony Abbott should be helping people rather than “hoarding electronics”.

“Instead of pretending to be Storage King Tony Abbott should be shelving his cruel budget of broken promises,” Senator Ludwig said.