https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/victoria/governmentowned-company-which-ra...The government-owned company in charge of the National Broadband Network treated their employees to Christmas parties that cost a whopping $655,000 over three years.
And NBN Co staff were reimbursed $616,000 for meals they ate in the office while working overtime, as part of an extraordinary three-year expenses bill totalling $47m.
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal NBN Co also racked up $923,000 in spending on “staff entertainment” including off-site team meetings and conferences.
NBN Co has already been at the centre of a political storm after staff received $77m in bonuses in a five-month period during the COVID-19 recession.
Opposition government services spokeswoman Kimberley Kitching accused Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and “his cosy club of NBN bosses” of “partying like it’s 1999 and delivering slow broadband speeds like it’s 1999”.
“His ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ approach to management is causing tens of million of dollars of high on the hog spending with NBN snouts in a golden trough,” Senator Kitching said.
A full breakdown of NBN Co employee expenses across the 2018, 2019 and 2020 financial years also reveals:
ALMOST $800,000 was spent on overseas trips including meetings and trade events.
THE bill for entertaining clients was $187,000, with $392,282 spent on external marketing.
FEES for staff to hold memberships of professional organisations added up to $619,239.
A STAFF awards program cost $226,000.
Between July 1 last year and February 28, the total cost of employee expenses plummeted to just $1.4m. An NBN Co
spokesman said the organisation cancelled all non-essential travel in 2020 and most employees who could work from home were encouraged to do so.
But Senator Kitching said that with Australia facing nearly a $1 trillion in debt, the government needed to “reign in the extravagant spending that’s going on at taxpayer-owned entities”.
NBN Co has 13 executives earning above $500,000 and 733 staff on at least $200,000 a year.733 staff all on $200.000pa...