Documents obtained by Daily Mail Australia reveal the Bill Shorten’s department forked out more than $40,000 on a one-day leadership forum for senior executives at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra.
Treating them to a lavish lunch at one of the capital’s most expensive and luxurious hotels at the taxpayers’ expense, Minister Shorten had the temerity to implore his departmental employees to ‘stop wasting money’.
Bill Shorten told his guests that 'when people are doing it tough, they do not want to see government projects burning their taxpayer dollars.’ However, it was unclear whether the Minister considers spending$40,000 on a lunch for public servants to be “burning” taxpayer dollars or not.
Opposition Government Services spokesman Paul Fletcher described the leadership forum as an appalling waste of taxpayer money,particularly in the midst of a national cost-of-living crisis.
'Families are struggling to pay bills and put food on the table and will rightly be shocked that Bill Shorten and his senior public servants are indulging themselves with this lavish offsite event, enjoying banana cake and roast lamb,' Mr Fletcher said.
'Services Australia, which has responsibility for Centrelink, should be making life easier for Australians. But instead,this crucial agency has consistently presided over skyrocketing call wait times and unacceptably high payment processing times,’ Mr Fletcher said.
'Bill Shorten needs to get back to basics by improving Services Australia’s performance.
'This means prioritising customer service and stop wasting money on pointless events. Australians deserve better,’ Mr Fletcher said.
