The Department of Defence has told a Senate estimates committee that it can't detail how many of its senior public servants and defence bosses have complimentary access to the Qantas Chairman's Lounge or Virgin's The Club due to privacy reasons.
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Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick has asked all agencies and departments how many of their staff had been invited to the two invitation-only clubs because of their positions in the public service.
In an answer to a question on notice, Defence said that Qantas and Virgin would not provide the number of people that had accepted membership of the lounges.
"Qantas and Virgin Australia have advised that, due to privacy considerations, they are unable to share information about the number of Defence personnel that have accepted Chairmans Lounge or The Club memberships," Defence said.
Senator Patrick was unimpressed with Defence's response.
"I’m sending this answer back with a big red circled ‘f’ mark. I’ll suggest that they ask Military Intelligence to help with re-answering it, because they certainly didn’t use any the first time around," he said.
"Invitation to the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge and Virgin The Club is normally restricted to the very senior members of the public service and the Defence Force. Each service could have asked the question at their regular senior management meetings, or there’s this thing called email."
Some other agencies and departments have already detailed how many of their staff members have been invited to the clubs. Four staff each at the Department of Energy and Environment and the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources have accepted memberships of both clubs. One staff member at the Bureau of Meteorology has access to both clubs, while one staff member at each of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security have access to the Chairman's Lounge.
Government travel comes with a hefty price tag - last year whole of government travel cost $539,419,178. The most common domestic routes were Canberra-Sydney, Canberra-Melbourne, and Brisbane-Canberra.
Under the Department of Finance policy for all of government, the lowest practical fare should always be chosen for government flights, except in limited circumstances. Access to the lounge for a specific airline is not to be considered under the policy.
Senator Patrick has peviously claimed there is an "overwhelming and inappropriate bias" when it comes to public servants choosing to travel Qantas over Virgin, with $201.6 million spent on Qantas domestic flights in 2016-17 and $61.1 million on Virgin domestic flights.
Public servants cannot accrue frequent flyer points on official travel, but can accrue status credits. Virgin Australia is making a play for more government business, telling federal public servants that it will match their Qantas frequent flyer level with the corresponding Virgin level.
The Australian National Audit Office recently suggested that a centralised gift register for public servants be developed and made publicly available online to increase transparency in the area.
The Department of Defence has been contacted for comment.
