ABC executives, staff spend $20m on travel as axe hovers

Questions are being raised as to whether managerial controls at the public broadcaster are too lax.

The ABC spent nearly $20m on travel by executives, directors and staff for the previous financial year. Picture: Damain Shaw

The ABC spent nearly $20m on travel by executives, directors and staff for the previous financial year, and is on track to at least match that amount in 2020, fresh documents reveal.

The Australian has obtained a filing made by the ABC in recent days in response to questions asked at Senate estimates hearings in October about how much the organisation was spending on travel. The filing reveals the total cost of travel by ABC employees and board members in the year to June 30 stood at $19.6m.

The real driver of the figure has been spending on domestic travel and allowances.

With $4.1m of this amount revealed in the ABC’s annual report as having been spent on inter­national travel in 2018-19, this means that $15.5m was spent on domestic travel and associated ­allowances.

The new numbers will bring into sharp focus ABC spending on travel and more than $100 daily allowances paid to travelling directors, management and staff — given that more than 75 per cent of total travel costs have been clocked up on travel within Australia alone.

ABC Managing Director David Anderson. Picture: Nikki Short

Questions are being raised internally and externally about whether managerial controls at the public broadcaster are too lax when it comes to domestic trips and related allowances.

The pivotal union member who deals with the ABC, the Community and Public Sector Union’s Sinddy Ealy, has called on ABC boss David Anderson to investigate and deal with the overuse of domestic flights by some ABC ­executives.

“The ABC managing director has a responsibility to staff and Australians to make sure he reins in excessive interstate travel of some ABC managers,” she said.

One insider has also pointed to holes in the internal approval process at the ABC when it comes to domestic flights: “While most international travel at the ABC has to be approved at managing director level, there is no senior management oversight and approval of domestic travel.”

The ABC’s filing has also revealed that total staff travel costs are on track to match or even surpass the 2018-19 figures for the 2019-20 financial year. For the four months to October 31, ABC spending on travel has hit $6.6m: a spending rate that would top the 2018-19 figure if it continued until next June.

These revelations will intensify pressure on ABC management to come down harder on domestic travel expenses as it goes through the sensitive process of formulating a redundancy program for at least 200 staff, as revealed in The Aust­ralian’s Media Diary in recent weeks.

That redundancy program is set to be formally announced in March, soon after ABC managing director David Anderson releases his five-year plan for the public broadcaster.

The Australian understands that apart from the travel itself, there has also been concern both internally and externally about whether the daily “per diem” allowances are being abused, particularly at an executive level.

Some managers at the public broadcaster are taking interstate trips either weekly or fortnightly, meaning these per diems are also clocking up.

Ms Ealy, who is the CPSU’s ABC section secretary, said: “At a time when staff are anxiously awaiting over 200 job cuts and are dealing with smaller budgets, to see some management spend so much on unnecessary travel is beyond the pale.”

There has also been disquiet among ABC staff and unions earlier this year about business-class travel by the board, particularly as they campaigned for a 2 per cent pay rise that was ultimately granted last month. These concerns reached a head in October when most ABC board members travelled business class to a Townsville board meeting, which doubled as an ABC “listening tour” of north Queensland.

It is understood that one key board-level exception to the ­business-class travel was the ABC’s staff-elected director Jane Connors, who has insisted on travelling economy to board meetings while her colleagues travel in the front of the plane.

While the bulk of the ABC board travels business class, the government figure in charge of the ABC, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, has been choosing to travel economy on domestic flights.

Ms Ealy said: “ABC staff are trying to produce content for our community with less resources and impending job cuts in the new year. Travel budgets for content creation have also been cut or frozen across the organisation, so of course ABC management travel arrangements should be under scrutiny.”

An ABC spokesman said the ABC was “on track” to cut its travel costs: “There was a 3.1 per cent decrease in kilometres flown by ABC employees in 2018-19, compared to the previous year. This financial year we are on track to further decrease travel costs.”