New federal expense data has revealed which politicians are the biggest spenders in 2022 when it comes to using taxpayer money to pay for accommodation, flights, and office administration. We can now officially compare exactly what the difference is between how much was spent by current PM Anthony Albanese, and his predecessor Scott Morrison.
Now obviously sometimes politicians need to spend money in order to achieve a job. Resources need to be provided to our federal members so that they are able to serve their electorates and the Australian public, and those resources are funded by taxes. As are hospitals and roads.
However some expenses are… less necessary, shall we say?
Like that time house speaker Bronwyn Bishop spent over $5K on a helicopter ride from Melbourne to Geelong.
But how do our current pollies stack up, and how much did they spend?
Who were the most expensive Australian politicians of 2022?
According to the new report from the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which shows politician expenditure between July 1 2022 and September 30 2023, the highest spending parliamentarians over this time period were:
- Anthony Albanese — Total expenditure: $684,665.31
- Tony Burke — Total expenditure: $398,410.41
- Peter Dutton — Total expenditure: $363,003.73
- Tanya Plibersek — Total expenditure: $326,248.00
- Madeleine King — Total expenditure: $319,065.19
These numbers account for the three months following Labor’s win of the 2022 Federal Election.
Albanese tops the list, which is typical of prime ministers given they are required to travel all across the country. Of the nearly $700K he chalked up, $481,647.34 of it was on domestic travel. This consists of $80K for his own travel, and the rest being for having his staffers travel as well.
Fascinatingly, Albanese’s travel personal travel expenses are still $2,700 short of what previous PM Scott Morrison spent during the same time period in 2021, which was the second year of COVID and when the entire country was locked down.
ScoMo also beats Albo in terms of who splurged the most on their office expenses, with Scotty From Marketing spending a total of $113,457 on office costs in 2021. Comparatively, Albanese spent $30,430 on his office, only $80K shy of Morrison.
Must be all those “I Stopped These“ trophies that Morrison needed to decorate his office with, hey?
Other fun reveals from the Expenses Authority’s data include which politicians spent the most on car costs. Here’s the top three:
- Bob Katter — Total: $28,405.03
- Stephen James — Total: $24,967.37
- Rick Wilson — Total: $23,493.62
Additionally, the highest spenders on telecomm resources were:
- Barnaby Joyce — Total: $5,046.82
- Darren Chester — Total: $4,607.95
- Dan Tehan — Total: $4,319.62
However not everyone was spending big money! Some politicians actually saved money on their costs, meaning that some of their total expenditures were in the negative over the course of the July-September 2022 period.
So roll out your congratulations to these big savers for their service to the country and how they saved money:
- Dave Sharma — Total expenditure: – $13,036.61
- Trent Zimmerman — Total expenditure: – $7,617.52
- George Christensen — Total expenditure: – $5,605.57
Oop, wait up.
I’m just getting word now that the reason these gents were all able to save so much money is because they all failed to win their seat in an election, and only saved this money because they essentially got the boot.
Meaning money was saved on office administration… because they weren’t in office.
So really, it all goes to show that clearly the cheapest politician is no politician at all. Glad we got that sorted.
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