The independent watchdog on politicians’ expenses has revealed the Defence Department has blocked it from accessing documents detailing Defence Minister Richard Marles’ VIP flights and the details of every other minister flying on RAAF planes for nearly two years.
The failure to provide the passenger and flight details means the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is currently unable to recover funds from the offices of MPs who use the VIPs to ferry electorate staff and family across the country.
News.com.au revealed last month that Mr Marles had spent over $3.6 million on VIP flights but was refusing to say where he travelled or who was on board, citing security concerns.
While it was known that the Defence Department had paused the provision of the information including passenger manifests to IPEA pending a security review last year, the Albanese Government has recently spruiked the fact that the provision of the data would now resume to boost “transparency.”
In fact, the Albanese Government’s own talking points to Labor MPs, leaked to the news.com.au, states the following under the heading “transparency.”
“The Albanese Government is absolutely committed to transparency,’’ the talking points state.
“Appropriate oversight and transparency measures will be put in place, including the provision of manifests to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority.”
Over a fortnight ago, the Defence Department also released a statement insisting that the SPA Guidelines had been updated to “reflect the outcomes of the security review while also ensuring accountability in reporting.”
“Defence will provide passenger manifests to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) who conduct assurance activities and audits relating to all work expenses, travel expenses and travel allowances claimed by parliamentarians and their staff,’’ a spokesman said.
But when news.com.au lodged freedom of information requests with the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority over those documents, the watchdog promptly advised the documents did not exist.
“IPEA undertakes budget allocation and recovery action based on information provided by the Department of Defence,’’ a spokesperson said.
“As of 12 September 2023, IPEA has not received any new details of Special Purpose Aircraft flights. The most recent information relates to 2021. Discussions with the Department of Defence relating to the Special Purpose Aircraft are ongoing and further questions are best directed to them.”
IPEA has traditionally recovered money directly from an MP’s office travel budget when they used the military planes to ferry electorate staff, spouses of non-office holders, and dependants around the country.
Contacted by news.com.au over the weekend with a raft of questions regarding the VIP flights, a defence spokesperson replied there was nothing further to add.
“Defence will not be providing further comment,’’ a spokesperson said.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge said the independent watchdog could hardly “audit” data that the Defence Department refused to provide.
“The Minister of Defence is spending the equivalent of the annual salary for many Australians every week on these VIP flights, the least he could do is tell people where he is going, including the Parliamentary branch that monitors MP travel expenses,’’ he said.
“There is no excuse for Defence failing to give IPEA these flight manifests for the past two years.
“The simple fact is that IPEA can’t conduct an integrity audit on flight manifests it never got.”
Freedom of information documents first reported by The Guardian in June revealed that defence had stopped providing passenger details to the expenses watchdog in December 2021.
Traditionally, the material was tabled on a six monthly basis which means the next instalment would have otherwise been tabled in June, 2022 under the new Albanese Government.
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce was one of the CEOs who hitched a ride on a taxpayer-funded VIP plane as part of the Jobs and Skills Summit last year.
“I can confirm as well that they were sent a bill, they paid their own way and that they sat together while I had a meeting about the Jobs and Skills summit in a different section of the plane,” he said.
Despite this disclosure, the government has insisted it cannot release the passenger manifests for other flights based on “security advice” and concerns it could detail pattern of life data that could be used for espionage or endanger MPs.
Separately, the Albanese government has also stopped publishing details of MPs’ domestic travel, cabcharge use and travel allowances for the last year, citing an IT malfunction.
Mr Marles office has previously stated that “all travel conducted by the Deputy Prime Minister either in his role as Defence Minister or as Acting Prime Minister is in accordance with the relevant guidelines and security procedures.”