Flying high to regulate
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) spent more than $1.5 million on travel for the current financial year to the end of January, with more than $900,000 of that amount spent on international travel.
The regulator has provided the information as part of an answer to a question on notice from Tasmanian Liberal Senator David Bushby but has declined to provide a detailed breakdown, claiming it does not have the resources to do so.
The APRA answer comes at the same time as speculation that the Government will move to lift financial services levies in the Federal Budget to cover off the cost of implementing both its Future of Financial Advice legislation and Stronger Super.
While declining Bushby's request for detailed information, the regulator did acknowledge that it provided lounge memberships to staff and that it used the Government's centralised airline booking service to secure the best fare of the day.
Its formal answer to Senator Bushby stated, "APRA does not record travel data in a way that would readily allow answers to be provided to these questions. To attempt to provide the level of detail would involve an unreasonable diversion of APRA's resources".
"Qantas and/or Virgin airline lounge memberships are provided to APRA staff that regularly travel interstate and internationally on APRA business to assist in their productivity while out of the office."
It said that for the financial year to 31 January 2012, the total cost of lounge memberships was $8,763 and the average cost of membership per employee was $204.
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