Top spending MPs revealed after government promises to do better on transparency

Anthony Albanese spent almost $700,000 on domestic and international travel and other taxpayer-funded expenses in the first three months of his prime ministership, in a delayed release of MPs’ entitlements the government says will improve transparency.

And in a separate data dump, it was revealed Albanese and his deputy Richard Marles incurred more than $5 million in costs using Defence jets to move around Australia and overseas.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The release of both sets of information, which came after claims of non-transparency from Greens and crossbench MPs, was criticised by the Coalition.

“Anthony Albanese said his government would be the most transparent in history, but instead we see continuous efforts to hide the use of taxpayer funds from appropriate scrutiny,” acting Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said.

Politicians’ expenses from July to September 2022 were released on Wednesday, the first update of MPs’ taxpayer-funded entitlements in more than a year and a half after an IT bungle prevented their release.

The information follows months of criticism by Greens and teal MPs about Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ use of special purpose flights which the government said could not be revealed because of security concerns.

The figures show the prime minister’s total expenditure for the July-September 2022 period was $684,665, with a breakdown showing most of that cost was for employee travel which came to just over $512,000.

In a comparative three-month period before the last election, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s total expenditure was higher than Albanese’s at $1.3 million.

International travel costs for Albanese in that period amounted to over $82,000, which included trips to the NATO leaders’ summit, Fiji, the United Kingdom for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and Japan for the state funeral of assassinated former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Resources Minister Madeleine King and Deputy Opposition Leader Ley were the next biggest spenders.

Rounding out the top ten biggest spenders were Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh, Sport Minister Anika Wells, Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor and Foreign Minister Penny Wong who all spent between $296,000 and $275,000.

The top spending MPs for “scheduled commercial travel” was Western Australia-based King, who spent over $39,000, followed by Labor MP Anne Aly and NSW Labor senator Tim Ayres.

Nationals MP Mark Coulton, Independent MP Bob Katter and Greens leader Adam Bandt were the top three spenders for “unscheduled commercial transport”, charging the taxpayer $31,784, $31,433 and $23,749 respectively.

MPs contacted for comment said their travel and expenses were in line with government guidelines.

Regional MPs and those from Western Australia typically spend much more on travel due to the size of their electorates and because of the distance between Canberra and their home towns.

MPs’ expenses were last published in 2022, shortly before the election of the Albanese government.

Marles in August controversially refused to reveal his flights on VIP aircraft, which was reported at the time to cost over $3.6 million.

In a separate release of documents, the Department of Defence also released politicians’ spending on VIP flights, revealing Albanese spent over $3.3 million from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

Marles spent over $2.1 million on VIP flights from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

The Department of Defence said previously published figures on the flights were an “error” due to a combination of technical faults and incomplete administrative checks and balances.

The special Defence flights are calculated separately from commercial airfares included in the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority figures.

In September, the Greens and the Coalition moved in the Senate to order the release of government documents that show the dates and costs of each of Marles’ flights as well as their origins and destinations.

Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie united with six teal MPs to express their disappointment in the government on transparency and offered to self-publish their own expenses.

Farrell said in his statement on Wednesday said the system had never functioned as intended and the complaints across the parliament had been consistent since it began in 2018.

“From opposition we raised hundreds of questions, over successive years, including repeated questioning at Senate estimates – all of which, fell on deaf ears,” Farrell said.

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