Federal parliament · IPEA figures · last 12 months

MP and senator expenses

Loading…

Work expenses of federal parliamentarians and their staff's travel, as published by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority.

Read this before you judge anyone

Distance costs money. Members for huge electorates such as Durack (WA), Lingiari (NT) and Kennedy (QLD), and senators from WA, the NT and Queensland, fly further and more often. IPEA says flights from Perth or Darwin to Canberra cost more than from Sydney or Melbourne, and remote electorates can need several flights and road travel.
Bigger jobs, bigger bills. The Prime Minister, ministers, party leaders and presiding officers have more staff, extra offices and more travel, at home and overseas. Committee work can add travel too.
Spending within the rules is not wrongdoing. A high total on this page says nothing, by itself, about whether any claim was right or wrong. IPEA asks each parliamentarian to certify their expenses were for parliamentary business.
Repayments are often routine. In IPEA's words, repayments are “not necessarily due to a parliamentarian having claimed incorrectly”. Many are small corrections or voluntary.
These are IPEA's figures, not ours. We add them up and rank them; we don't change, estimate or project them. Amounts are exclusive of GST, and supplier credits show as negative amounts.
They run about a quarter behind. IPEA publishes each quarter a few months after it ends.
Not included: parliamentarians' salaries and their staff's salaries. Office set-up and refit costs are reported by IPEA by state, not by person.

Top 10 · last 12 months

The ten biggest totals

Total of every expense IPEA reported against that parliamentarian's office in the four quarters, including staff travel. What's counted

Every MP and senator

The full ranking

Search Chamber State Party In parliament Sort by

#	Parliamentarian	Latest quarter	12 months
Loading…

Tap a row to see the breakdown by category and quarter. The rank is the 12-month rank across all parliamentarians, whatever the filter.

Same treatment for everyone

By party and chamber

Parties with more members, ministers or remote seats will have bigger totals. The average per person is shown alongside, and it carries the same caveats.

Party

Party (as recorded by IPEA)	People	12 months	Average

Chamber

Chamber	People	12 months	Average

Repayments

Repayments recorded by IPEA

…

IPEA says repayments are not necessarily due to a parliamentarian having claimed incorrectly or to an audit; they can be for many reasons, including voluntary repayments by parliamentarians and staff. The description is IPEA's own wording, unedited.

Search repayments

Who	IPEA description	Category	Amount
Loading…

What's counted

IPEA reports parliamentarians' work expenses and the travel expenses of their staff, under section 12 of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Act 2017. Each person's total on this page adds up every amount IPEA reported against them in its quarterly expenses data, in these categories:

Not in these totals

Parliamentarians' salaries, and their staff's salaries.
Office costs (setting up, moving and refitting offices), which IPEA reports by state, not by person: … over the same 12 months.
Adjustments, which IPEA removes from a person's report when an administrative error was made by IPEA, the Department of Finance, a supplier or a system, and lists separately.
Former prime ministers, their surviving spouses, post-retirement travel and special units of government. They are in the headline total but not in the ranking: ….
Repayments are listed above as IPEA records them; they are not subtracted from anyone's total.

Where it comes from

Loading…

Party is as IPEA recorded it when it compiled each report. Whether someone is still in Parliament comes from the Parliament's own Parliamentary Handbook. Download the ranking as CSV or everything as JSON. Spotted a mismatch with IPEA? Tell us.