Tourism Australia staff caught spending $140k of taxpayers' money on personal travel
Three Tourism Australia employees have been fired after spending $137,441 of taxpayers' money for personal travel expenses, with the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) called in to investigate.
Tourism Australia is the government agency in charge of promoting Australia's tourism industry abroad.
Tourism Australia chief executive Phillipa Harrison appeared before a Senate committee in Canberra on Tuesday and confirmed the breach of the agency’s travel policy.
The spending had been uncovered in October 2023 when the agency's own staff detected the misuse of funds and “immediately reported and escalated” it.
“The three employees undertook personal travel that was booked through Tourism Australia’s corporate travel agent and was invoiced to Tourism Australia,” she told the committee.
“Tourism Australia demanded that the three individuals repay the full amount of this travel.”
She added that the full amount was repaid to Tourism Australia last December, and the three employees have since been sacked.
Harrison also said that Deloitte was hired to do an extensive audit dating back to 2021 “to ensure that we understood the full extent of the issue” but “no further instances of wrongdoing were identified”.
“Off the back of the audit I have overseen a strengthening of our travel policy processes to ensure the conduct cannot be repeated,” she said.
Tourism Australia have referred the matter to the NACC and are awaiting a response.
When asked by New South Wales Nationals senator Ross Cadell about the identities of the staff and whether the agency's chief financial officer was among those involved, she replied: "The NACC has advised me that I'm unable to provide the further details on the roles and the people involved until they have finished their investigations."
"To do so may compromise current or potential investigations, and prematurely impact the reputations of individuals in circumstances where the legislation enacted by parliament intends to avoid that by requiring that investigations, generally, be conducted in private and that information concerning them is not to be disclosed."
She took a question on notice about how many trips were booked by the staff and the destinations for the travel.
Her refusal to answer the questions caught the senator off-guard and he said: “I am shooketh, shaken, by not being able to ask these questions,” before calling a short suspension to discuss the concerns.
On return, she officially claimed “public interest immunity” and was told she had to outline the situation in writing.
"I have to say, this is the first time in my experience where a direction from the NACC has directed an official not to make a public statement," Tourism and Trade Minister Don Farrell said.
"This does present some significant issues which I myself would like to get clarified.
"You and I both voted for this legislation and obviously this is how it's being applied. The witness, obviously, has to comply with the direction of the NACC, she has no choice."
The matter has not been referred to authorities.
Image: Tourism Australia/ news.com.au