Budgets and reporting

Budget management / tracking

Parliamentarians are provided with up to five travel-related budgets or limits:

• Unscheduled transport in large electorates
• Electorate support budget
• Family reunion travel (Canberra and local area)
• Family reunion travel (Australia-wide)
• Travel allowance for electorate business outside the electorate, and/or party political duties outside Canberra.

Expenditure and usage must be tracked by parliamentarians to ensure that budgets or limits are not exceeded.

To assist with tracking budgets or limits, parliamentarians and their authorised staff have access to near real time budget reports in the Parliamentary Expenses Management System (PEMS).  

Budget overspends

Budgets or limits must not be exceeded. If a travel budget or limit is exceeded, IPEA invoices the parliamentarian. This is a debt to the Commonwealth and action is taken to recover the debt. 

Reporting

IPEA produces a range of reports to provide transparency and accountability for work expenses incurred, and to support parliamentarians and their staff in tracking and managing budgets, limits and expenditure.  

Expenditure reports

What is an expenditure report?

The expenditure report is a report on current and former parliamentarians’ expenses published on the Expenditure page. IPEA currently publishes the reports on a quarterly basis. Information in the report is an accurate statement of payments and repayments within the period. The report comprises aggregate information on: 

• travel costs
• office facilities
• office administrative costs
• telecommunications
• family travel
• staff costs.

As part of the public reporting process, current and former parliamentarians (including former Prime Ministers, surviving spouses / de facto partners of former Prime Ministers, and post retirement travellers) are asked to certify that the expenses listed in their report were used for the dominant purpose of conducting their parliamentary business. Current and former parliamentarians are not asked to certify the specific amount of listed expenses as they may have limited knowledge or control over various types of expenses, such as office facilities.

A list of certifications is published on the IPEA website with the final reports. 

Parliamentarians and their staff are encouraged to regularly check their detailed expenses in PEMS to ensure the correct expenses will flow through to expenditure reports. 

Information on how to check expenses in PEMS is available in the Budgets and expenditure reports factsheet. 

Further information on expenditure reports is available on our Reporting page. 

Budget reports 

Parliamentarians and their authorised staff have access to near real time budget reports in PEMS.  

Further information on accessing budget reports in PEMS is available in the Reporting – Office Information help guide. 

Request a report

Contact reporting@ipea.gov.au to request a custom report.