Carr's wife travels at taxpayers' expense - Brisbane Times

AAP

Bob Carr's wife Helena has accompanied him on almost every overseas trip he has made as foreign minister, costing taxpayers about $120,000 in mostly business class airfares in just six months.

Documents released under Freedom of Information laws show Mrs Carr travelled with her husband on eight of the nine trips he took in the months between late March and early September.

The arrangement is highly unusual for a foreign minister. AAP understands Senator Carr's Labor predecessors Stephen Smith and Kevin Rudd rarely if ever took their wives on official overseas trips.

The total cost of Senator Carr's nine trips was an estimated $828,754, the documents obtained by AAP show.

Of that, Mrs Carr's airfares - the vast majority of which were business class - accounted for an estimated $123,928.

Her meals and incidentals cost a further estimated $8000.

The figures come from pre-travel estimates provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to Senator Carr's office.

A spokesman for Senator Carr conceded the figures were "pretty close" to the actual costs.

The spokesman defended Mrs Carr's presence on the trips, saying they had followed the relevant ministerial guidelines and everything had been approved by the prime minister's office.

Those guidelines say ministers are "generally not accompanied on official overseas travel by his or her spouse or de facto partner". But exceptions will be made when host countries have extended an invitation to the spouse and where an official program of engagements has been arranged.

The spokesman says Mrs Carr always undertakes official engagements and works to build "diplomatic friendships".

"It's by no means a holiday. You have a full day," he told AAP.

"Her job in a lot of these cases is to do promotion of Australia's aid work."

Destinations do include countries to which Australia gives aid, including Cambodia, Burma and the Solomon Islands.

But they also include repeated visits to the US and the UK, and visits to wealthy Asian nations like Singapore and Japan.

The documents do not include the trip Senator Carr took to New Zealand before he was sworn in, or any of his travel in the past seven weeks. It is believed Mrs Carr accompanied her husband at least some of that time.

The only trip listed in the documents that Mrs Carr did not go on was a 24-hour visit her husband made to Fiji - at a steep cost of more than $42,000.

For that trip, Senator Carr took a special purpose aircraft at a cost of about $35,000 rather than fly commercially.

Senator Carr's spokesman said he opted for the private plane because he had to be back in Canberra for pre-budget cabinet meetings and commercial schedules were not suitable.

Overall, Senator Carr is spending more days abroad than Kevin Rudd, who was sometimes called Kevin 747.