The MPs who spent more than $100,000 – and the ministers who spent $0 – on family travel

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Australian taxpayers have spent more than $4 million on travel for politicians’ families and spouses since the election of the Albanese government, with four MPs charging over $100,000 each during that time, while others claimed less than $1000.

North-west Queensland Nationals MP Andrew Willcox charged the most of all MPs, with a bill of $123,769 for family travel, followed by West Australian independent senator Fatima Payman, who charged $118,790. South Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell was third, at $116,306, and West Australian assistant minister Pat Gorman charged $112,866.

Farrell’s expenses – which included flying a family member to Uluru for a complimentary dinner and to Sydney when he was offered free tickets to La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House – came under the microscope on Tuesday as scrutiny over Sports and Communication Minister Anika Wells’ spending extended to other government ministers.

The furore over Wells’ spending, which began last week when it emerged the Commonwealth spent $95,000 to fly her, a staffer and a senior public servant to the United Nations in New York, has opened a public debate over MPs use of taxpayer-funded entitlements and whether they meet community expectations.

Wells referred her expenses to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority on Tuesday afternoon.

The authority’s data shows Wells’ expenses on family travel came to $43,026 – the 28th-highest of parliamentarians. Wells was outranked in family travel spending by fellow ministers Farrell and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, as well as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, former opposition leader Peter Dutton, and 20 MPs from WA, the Northern Territory and regional Queensland, who generally accrue higher travel costs as they move across and from big remote electorates.

South Australian politicians, including Labor MPs Steve Georganas and Marielle Smith, and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, also outspent Wells on family travel, as did Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters. Hanson-Young’s expenses included $1124 on family flights to the Gold Coast on the same weekend she had free tickets to BluesFest in Byron Bay this year, The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

Rowland spent most on family entitlements out of all capital city MPs on the eastern seaboard, followed by Wells. Both have young families. One of Rowland’s largest expenses included billing taxpayers $16,050 for three family flights on a week-long journey to Western Australia, at a total trip cost of $21,685, The Australian Financial Review first reported on Tuesday.

While the Coalition is mounting a political argument about Wells’ judgment calls on several of her expenses, several opposition MPs have also spent thousands taking family members across the country while they attend events.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, for example, charged taxpayers $6581 for family flights between Perth Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin and Newcastle over a week in April this year as she travelled across the country for election campaign events. She is the eighth-highest spender on family travel in the parliament.

Don Farrell, Fatima Payman, Patrick Gorman and Andrew Willcox have spent more than $100,000 on family travel since the start of the Albanese government in 2022.

Nationals MP Anne Webster, from the Victorian regional electorate of Mallee, ranked 30th in family travel spending and spent $2976 for a family member to accompany her for a four-night trip to Perth for the World Transplant Games in April 2023, where she also claimed $1676 in travel allowance. Webster attended as a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Organ Donation group.

On a separate three-night trip to Sydney in October 2023, Webster claimed $2253 in family flights, but only claimed one night travel allowance for parliamentary business after attending a migration conference. Webster’s office declined to comment.

A minister earns around $400,000 a year, while a backbencher’s base salary is nearly $240,000.

Under family reunion rules, federal MPs are allowed three return business class flights a year for family members flying between the MPs’ home base and a city other than Canberra, and the value of nine business class flights to Canberra. There is also an allowance of three return economy flights per child to Canberra, and some flexibility to the rules allows ministers to claim more.

The measures are designed to support politicians’ family lives, given the extent of their travel, but MPs have discretion over how they are applied. Those who have claimed the least on family travel include independent MP Dai Le ($170) and NSW Labor Senator Jenny McAllister ($398).

Cabinet ministers Katy Gallagher, who is Canberra-based, and western Sydney MP Chris Bowen have not made any claims to the family allowance since Labor came to government in 2022.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke charged $1528 in family travel. Burke repaid $8600 in flights in 2020, saying the expenses had not met community expectations, after charging taxpayers $12,708 for his family to join him in Uluru in 2012.

The Labor cabinet ministers who spent the most on family travel were Farrell ($116,306), West Australian minister Madeleine King ($76,692), Northern Territory minister Malarndirri McCarthy ($75,717), Albanese ($75,321), Rowland ($52,600) and Wells ($43,026).

Farrell, who charged $2094 for a family flight to Uluru for a free sunset dinner, said reunion rules were an important part of parliament’s framework. “[They allow] a diverse range of members and senators to represent their communities in our nation’s parliament,” he said in a statement.

“Our parliament would be a lesser place if it weren’t for the mechanisms that allow young mothers, single parents, those with families, and those with caring responsibilities to serve as elected members.”

But Liberal MP Steven Kennedy, who has claimed $600 in family allowance since joining parliament last year, said it made sense to limit family flights to economy class, before suggesting the entitlements could be scrapped altogether.

“I have some more radical views on what you could do. I think you could get rid of all [family] travel or gifts,” he told Sky News.

Kennedy said he didn’t want to demonise family travel for rural-based MPs because it allowed them to see their children more often, but worried such entitlements could encourage people into politics for the wrong reasons.

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