The most senior federal public servant has been busily jetting about quite a bit, spending $58,677 on travel in the first six months of 2023.
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Prime Minister & Cabinet secretary Glyn Davis took 14 trips between January 1 and June 30, a half-yearly report from the department shows.
His bill is inclusive of accommodation, but the department did not respond to a request for details on where the secretary travelled and what each individual trip cost.
"The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has begun publishing corporate information on a six-monthly basis," a spokesperson said instead.
"The secretary travels to various locations as part of his official duties. The figure provided for his travel includes accommodation (and all other associated) costs."
Meanwhile, the central agency's total travel bill for the first six months of the year was $6,908,000 (including staff, contractors, guests and other travellers).
PM&C international and security deputy secretary Scott Dewar actually spent the most on travel (which makes sense), with a bill of $122,621 for 13 trips.
The half-yearly report, which PM&C has just started producing, gives an interesting glimpse into the agency.
It reveals it entered 15 consultancy contracts in the 2022-23 financial year, worth $2.4 million.
That was just a small portion of the $86.9 million it spent on procurement last financial year, through 378 contracts.
(Though it actually likely spent more, given that only comprises contracts worth more than $10,000, listed on AusTender).
Meanwhile it dished out $6203 on promotional merch for career fairs, $109,496 on the 2024 grad program, and $27,756 notifying the public of the national memorial service for the Queen.
The PM's electricity bills
If you thought your electricity bills were bad (thank you, cost-of-living crisis), just wait until you see what it takes to keep the lights on in the Prime Minister's official residences.
The Prime Minister's Lodge on Adelaide Avenue in Deakin racked up more than $46,000 worth of energy bills between July 2022 and June 2023, according to documents released under Freedom of Information request.
Unsurprisingly, the bills were at their highest during the coldest months. July and August last year saw the biggest totals, costing $5862.42 and $5696.20 respectively.
But Kirribilli House - the Prime Minister's official Sydney residence - cost significantly less to power. The total in electricity bills between April 2022 and April 2023 was around $19,000, by comparison.
Perhaps the Prime Minister should ask Chief Minister Andrew Barr to get him into the ACT government's free home energy assessment.
The territory-funded program sends a contractor to your house, who checks out how you can save on energy bills.
It's technically for cold renters but he doesn't exactly own the Lodge, does he?
Defence stationery: A follow-up
Our fascination with Defence's stationery spending continues here at Public Eye, with a contract worth $15.5k for "envelopes and clipboard" recently piquing our intrigue on AusTender.
Naturally, we had to know more. Is the department sending out invites for something? Are we on the list? Are they really just after one clipboard?
No to that last point.
It turns out that they are ordering 4000 clipboards, and that these aren't just any old clipboards - they are NATO-standard multi functional folders with transparent pockets issued to soldiers, sailors and aviators to use for everything from logistics, or training, to admin.
As for the envelopes, Defence has ordered 5800 transparent envelopes in two different sizes to protect topographical maps and sensitive documents.
They can be drawn on with waterproof markers, and are mostly used in littoral and tropical environments.
Defence has taken out the title of biggest stationery spender among the agencies for several years, so we will see whether this order helps push them across the line to first place again in 2023-24.
A Public Eye investigation: How often does your minister show up?
In an interview with The Canberra Times in August, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman mentioned that Anthony Albanese set an early mandate for ministers to visit their departments and speak to public servants.
A few weeks ago, we felt inspired to ask every minister how many times they had visited the Canberra offices of their departments since appointment. (Noting, most of them visit departments outside of Canberra, too.)
Public Eye got the sense that ministers' offices were just thrilled to receive that inquiry, about 12pm on the last sitting day of a two-week block.
As such, our endeavour, was a bit of a flop, but we did turn up a few responses.
Katy Gallagher has visited the Department of Finance approximately 16 times, PM&C on five occasions, and the Australian Public Service Commission four times.
"I have a deep respect and appreciation for the work our public servants do every day, both for the Albanese government and the broader Australian community," Senator Gallagher said.
Public Eye did not reach out to assistant ministers, but Patrick Gorman did hear about our inquiry and let us know that he had visited the APSC (including the academy) three times, PM&C twice, and Services Australia once.
Andrew Giles has visited the Department of Home Affairs/the Australian Border Force six times.
A government spokesperson responded that: "The Prime Minister has visited the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on multiple occasions as well as other departments and agencies, and respects and values the important work of all public servants."
We also heard Matt Keogh, Julie Collins, Murray Watt, Penny Wong and Mark Butler visit their departments regularly, but we failed to turn up any figures.
If any studious public servants have been tallying up their minister's visits (or noting down anecdotes about preparations for said visits), do send them our way.
On the agenda this week:
- The Community and Public Sector Union will lodge further protected action ballots with the Fair Work Commission.
- The Senate inquiry into funding of the Australian Antarctic Division will hold its first public hearing on Wednesday.
- The Senate inquiry into ASIC's investigation capabilities will hold another public hearing on Wednesday.
Over to you:
- Got a juicy tip about your minister's visits?
- Want to flag an upcoming APS event?
- Get in touch: ps@canberratimes.com.au