KEVIN Rudd has lost a six month battle to block the release of documents detailing his taxpayer-funded perks as an ex-PM including Julia Gillard’s offer of “the highest class of travel available”.
Correspondence between Mr Rudd and his successor Julia Gillard has revealed for the first time the severance package that the ex Labor PM was offered for his ‘unfair dismissal’ as PM.
The deal was unusual because most ex-PMs leave Parliament before they are granted a ticket on the gravy train of entitlements available to national leaders.
Ms Gillard’s offer to Mr Rudd included three additional staffers on salaries over $100,000-a-year costing taxpayers around $400,000-a-year in total.
That cost did not include the cost of providing Mr Rudd with a second office in Brisbane’s CBD in addition to his electorate office and a range of other travel perks.
In a letter dated June, 2010, Ms Gillard also reassures the globetrotting ex-PM that he will secure access to a taxpayer-funded chauffeur and driver, a private-plated car, with the option of appointing a driver on his personal staff, plus access to existing ComCar pool transport. Overseas, Mr Rudd was also pledged access to cars at overseas posts but for specific journeys “rather than a dedicated on call service.’’
When Mr Rudd travelled as a backbencher, he was assured of being offered a travelling entitlement at the ministerial rate to ensure he could stay at more expensive hotels.
The standard range of entitlements available to former Prime Ministers also included second office separate from the electorate office, flights and spousal travel.
In Mr Rudd’s case, he opened a second office in Brisbane’s CBD a short drive away from his electorate base.
But the Rudd-Gillard deal also included a special deal for a taxpayer funded personal staffer on six figures for a period of 12 months.
The staffer, that Mr Rudd would not have been entitled to if Ms Gillard had not granted him the special deal, cost taxpayers around $120,000-a-year. This was to assist Mr Rudd with “transitional arrangements’’.
While Ms Gillard offered no objection to the release of the private correspondence following an Freedom of Information application by The Sunday Telegraph in February, Mr Rudd fought the application at every turn.
After the Department of PM & C confirmed their intention to release the documents and sent a letter to the parties outlining the reasons, the documents were mysteriously leaked to a rival media outlet last week, angering the Department.
Ms Gillard’s office confirmed it did not oppose the release of the documents or leak the documents prior to their official release in any way.
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM & C) confirmed they also “did not disclose the documents or information in the documents’’.
Asked directly if his office had leaked the documents, Mr Rudd provided the following response:
“Mr Rudd’s office has no comment to make other than to underline the fact that the former Prime Minister’s office had, at the conclusion of the FOI process, not sought a formal review objecting to the release of the correspondence.”
That would have provided a final avenue for appeal after earlier objections.
In March, 2012, the documents show Ms Gillard wrote to Mr Rudd again after his first failed leadership coup stipulating his entitlements again but stipulated “unlimited travel by scheduled domestic services. at the cost of a business class fare.’’ The deal also included “a maximum of 40 domestic trips a year’’ to Canberra for his wife Therese Rein. This time, he also scored “unlimited postage for official purposes”.
But by June, 2013, it was Mr Rudd’s turn to write Ms Gillard a letter after he rolled her as PM. He offered her the same deal including up to 40 trips a year to Canberra for her partner Tim Mathieson. After Mr Rudd left Parliament, Mr Abbott wound back the special deal on extra staff and travel entitlements to reflect the standard arrangements for former PMs.
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