Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 1:16:31 to 1:25:24
Analysis of departmental travel spending, including domestic versus international flight costs and adherence to whole-of-government travel policies.
Topics: Travel and event costs, Efficiency dividend
Speakers: Mr Jim Betts, Senator Dean Smith, Speaker 8, Ms Jodie George, Senator The Hon Sarah Henderson
Betts, can you please update this committee on travel, the travel costs of um departmental officials in particular in relation to overseas travel? What is the total overseas travel bill? And if you could outline how many departmental staff have travelled overseas and provide on notice a detailed breakdown of those trips, both flights, accommodation, and other incidental costs, please.
Yes, so while the um my colleagues are finding the detail of that in the financial year 25-26, there were um officials undertook 4,522 flights.
Sorry, say that again.
4,522 flights, of which 4,328 were domestic. So I'm just doing the maths in my head. That looks like about 194 overseas flights. Um the total expenditure by the Department on Travel was 5.5 million in that financial year. Um we may be able to give you more detailed breakdown.
Uh yes, Senator. Uh so Phil Smith, uh CFO. So in 25-26 staff travel was 5.5 million GST exclusive, 3.5 related to domestic travel, 2 million related to international. And that obviously includes airfares, accommodation, meals and other travel expenses. Now we don't have the individual breakdown on how many trips there are. I note there was a question on notice uh that we tabled recently from 1 July to 31st of May 2026 that had a breakdown of international travel.
And obviously that covers the entirety of the department, not simply the outcomes which are covered by the environment and communications committee.
Thank you. Um Senator Smith has got some more questions on travel, Chair. So if you don't mind, I'm just going to hand to him. And then after that point, we would be happy to go to morning tea and move on to outcome five after morning tea. Thank you.
Could you just repeat what was the total number of flights?
4,522 trips, 4,328 domestic and 1900.
We do have to speak up on a flight.
Sorry, 194 international, and we're talking about trips. There could be various legs of one overseas travel.
And the total figures 4,52. What were the most frequent domestic routes?
Oh, we have to have that detail. Um we'd need to take that on notice and get off our travel booking.
I think we do have that detail. We just don't have it to hand. So we we will be able to source that information for you, Senator. So it's worth noting that that's a 26% reduction in travel expenditure from 24-25 into 25-26, which responds to the uh efficiency dividends and other savings measures the government has put in place.
Um do you have uh details about frequency of travel for each month?
Uh we would be able to source that off the information, so we'll get that as well, Senator.
I'd be interested to know what is the 4,522 uh by um destination. And also by Month of travel. What were those travel reforms or efficiency initiatives, Mr. Betts?
Periodically and over a successive number of budgets. The government has decided to seek savings from departments by requiring them to reduce expenditure on non-staff items, consultants, contractors, legal expenses and travel. And so we have been had those savings handed down to us as a result of budget processes and for that reason and also in the context of the Middle East crisis and the impact on fuel prices. We have sought to economise on travel.
That 26% reduction that you mentioned, is that in travel costs or total number of travel trips?
That's travel expenditure.
Expenditure. So the cumulative cost was $5.5 million in total. $2526. Are you able to break that down in terms of what that represented in terms of air fares, accommodation and other land transport, I'm assuming?
Yes, we can certainly take that on notice. I would point to the question on notice that we tabled from the last hearing which actually had the breakdown for international flights of the flight itself and the cost of accommodation. So we'll certainly be able to source that data for the broader thing. It will just take a little bit of time to do so.
What is the routine or mechanism inside the department when travel is approved? So I'm assuming that do people have to give a certain number of days notice for travel? Do they have to book formally on a travel website? Do they are they formally required to take the cheapest option irrespective of time of travel?
What's the policies which are whole of government policy is specified by the Department of Finance that we are required to comply with, including the use of centralized service providers and rules around ensuring value for money through the appropriate fare. Sometimes that will the availability of that fare will depend on timing, it will depend on destination and so on, but I'll ask the team to take you through more detail.
Yes, certainly, Senator. So we do have detailed policy, but we also have detailed guidance as well to provide additional information to support officials booking travel. Officials are encouraged to book travel as soon as possible, so as early as possible. We do obviously acknowledge that there are often circumstances which require that travel to happen quite urgently. In all cases we do require staff to seek a number of quotes which is available to be done through the whole of government travel system CTM. So we ask staff to look across the panel airlines that are available through CTM to ensure that they've got a number of different flight options. They are required to seek the best value fare under the whole of Australian government framework. That doesn't necessarily mean the cheapest flight. There are other things that need to be taken into consideration, but flight is one of price is one of those key drivers, and that is required to be documented when they put in their approval for travel so that the delegates are able to look at what the different arrangements are and the different considerations that have been made to meet that best value framework.
So thinking just about domestic trips, what is the proportion of travel that is taken on a Qantas flight? A virgin flight or another airline?
So broadly speaking quantus uh flights account for about 66% by number and about 74% by cost. And that compares to an overall market share for quantus of about 66 per cent. So we're pretty much in alignment with the market share as between Qantas, Virgin and other airlines. And that's been true over a number of years now. We routinely asked about this in the RAC committee under the Transport Outcome.
And that experience for this department uh is uniform across government?
I couldn't tell you the answer to that.
But you obviously do the research.
You obviously go to RAT and Well, we know the overall market share within the aviation sector because that's one of the portfolio responsibilities of our department, and we know the overall split between airlines for the expenditure for which we're accountable, but I can't speak to expenditure in other departments, which I'm not the Secretary.