Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 5:10:31 to 5:13:08
Discussion focuses on the magnitude of allowance cuts, with some locations seeing reductions of 50% or more, and requests for detailed data.
Topics: ADF, Government spending
Speakers: Justine Greig, Meghan Quinn, James Paterson
>> Uh in a few instances that is right but I would I really would like to provide you the whole um for each location how the index was applied so you can see that in the context of all locations. But yes, that is correct. I
>> I would like you to provide that to me as well, but since we don't have it, I have to kind of in the meantime persist and I look forward to receiving it on notice as soon as it can be provided. So, is it in a majority of locations or a large number of locations that we're talking about a 50% or more reduction?
>> Uh, not the majority. No.
>> No. Okay. What is the the highest proportion of reduction? Is it 60%, 70%, how high are we talking in some
Uh look again there are so many locations and in terms of the uh translation between the currency in the actual uh country of which people are posted I'd really prefer to provide the uh table for you.
>> Well I look forward to that. Um how much will defense save as a lot of these
>> Uh I can't answer that. we would have to do some form of projection. If we had left uh the had left um the amounts as they were, I'd have to do some sort of projection. The aim of this was to ensure we had the contemporary standard and aligned with uh DEFAT.
>> Surely you know though like I mean this is a you know money is tight in the defense portfolio. We want to make sure it's spent uh as well as it can be. You should know roughly the quantum of savings. Is it millions of dollars? Is it tens of millions of dollars? Is it
>> It would um um Can you just bear with me for a minute? >> Of course. >> I I don't believe I've got the price difference here, but it was not in the order of what you're describing.
>> So, we're happy to take on notice the the details you're asking, but this wasn't a policy that was driven necessarily by uh a savings exercise. It was it was as uh Miss Griger said it was around consistency. Um it's not clear to me that an APS officer serving in a particular country in defense requires different meal allowances or other incidential allowances than a DEFAT officer or a DAER officer or a agriculture officer uh operating at the same post. And so this policy was around looking at the consistency across the arrangements for both APS and ADF and it applies consistently >> for both sets of employees.