Business class PS travel takes off
TAXPAYERS shelled out $31 million for public servants to fly business class across Australia and abroad in just three months since July.
Business class trips accounted for more than a quarter of the $112 million federal government employees spent on flights in the first quarter of this financial year, documents tabled in Parliament reveal.
Public servants will rack up almost half a billion dollars on flights alone if whole of government travel spending continues at this rate for the rest of the financial year.
It’s a dramatic increase on five years ago, when air travel across government cost $377.2 million in 2013-14. The spend has increased each year.
Meanwhile, the full travel cost for government departments and agencies, including car rentals and accommodation but excluding meals and other expenses, has already reached slightly more than $150 million for the July quarter this year.
Overseas travel accounted for $24 million of the business class flights, while the remaining $7.5 million was spent on travelling business class domestically, where the longest flight takes 5½ hours.
The departments of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Immigration and Border Protection were the biggest spenders, along with the Department of Human Services and the CSIRO.
Defence spent the most on flights by far, at $43.1 million in total for domestic and international travel for the threemonth period.
But an analysis by News Corp shows the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources spent the highest proportion on business class travel, at 70 per cent of their $2.38 million total flight costs for three months.
About $57,000 of that was spent on domestic flights, while $632,813 was spent on international trips.
A department spokesman said all flights were in line with the official Australian Government travel policy.
Under the Australian Government’s travel policy, all air travel “must be the lowest practical fare in economy class unless there is a business case or entitlement to travel business class”.