Senior public servants repeatedly queried why NSW One Nation leader Mike Newman was charging taxpayers for hotels, trips and restaurant bills, including a $7791 dinner with a Japanese trade delegation which included 71 beers and 23 bottles of wine.
Documents released through parliament on Thursday show senior bureaucrats rebuked Newman for his spending habits during his 28-month stint as a senior trade commissioner in Japan, with one executive rejecting a $211 bill for lunch and telling the now-One Nation leader it was “not how the NSW government does business”.
It comes after this masthead last week revealed Newman racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses for taxpayer-funded flights, five-star hotels and restaurant and bar bills during his 28-month stint as a senior trade commissioner in Japan.
The spending included about $20,494 on a seven-month stay in a Meriton Suite in Sydney before he moved to Japan. The spending occurred while he waited for permission to travel to Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite Newman living in Sydney when he was appointed.
He was also charging taxpayers about $8000 a month to rent an apartment in Tokyo for some of that time.
The spending was revealed in the context of Newman’s repeated criticisms of the NSW public service since his appointment as One Nation’s leader in NSW, in which he raised the prospect of “claw[ing] back entitlements from those found responsible for having egregiously misused public funds without consequences”.
“There is so much money and waste that is inside the public service,” he said during his unveiling in August.
But the documents released on Thursday shed new light on some of the expenses, as well as revealing the public service repeatedly questioned Newman’s spending. This masthead previously reported Newman charged taxpayers for a bill adding up to almost $5300 at Crystalbrook Kingsley, a hotel in Newcastle, in August 2023. He said that had been for a dinner with a Japanese trade delegation and spending on alcohol was pre-approved.
But the documents show the bill was larger – $7790.50 – and reveal public servants said they were only told that alcohol would be served at the event. The bill, for 51 people, included a three-course meal at $109 per head, as well as 71 beers and 23 bottles of wine. The restaurant charged $59 per bottle.
The documents show that spending was later closely scrutinised, with an official forced to answer a series of questions about how it had occurred. The official – whose name was redacted – noted that only one onshore Investment NSW staffer was at the event, and that Newman had “hosted the dinner”.
The dinner was aimed at “facilitating connections” with the Japanese delegation, NSW officials and “academia” and “fostering ongoing dialogue”, they wrote, and resulted in “further discussions” on potential “partnerships and investment opportunities”.
The official said they had found out Newman and the Department of Regional NSW had been planning “some kind of dinner” about a month earlier. However, they said, it was “only at the event itself that we found out that alcohol was being served and that Mike Newman was intending to pay for all of it”.
Newman previously defended his spending and pointed to cases of using his own money to fund trips, such as in October 2023, when he said he spent about $10,000 to attend an Australia-Japan Business Council event in Melbourne because the government would not approve it. Some documents also show Newman paid his own per diem during some business trips.
The One Nation leader said he had saved taxpayers by arguing against a $49 million net zero economy office the government wanted to establish, though this masthead has been unable to verify that claim.
“I should be bloody given congratulations, not censured, for stopping a $50 million empire going in that was going to be a complete waste of money,” he said.
Not all the documents obtained through a parliamentary call for papers have been publicly released, and Newman said there was important “contextual” information in emails he had sent to the department.
“Senior management and I did not see eye to eye because we had very strong differences of opinion on doing business,” he said.
“My department wanted to issue a fatwa on me [and] they used to use technicalities and irrelevant stuff to go after me because I threatened the status quo.
“I’m not a hypocrite, I was paying for a lot of this stuff myself.”
Among the other expenses was another month-long stay at the Meriton Suites in North Sydney in 2023 for which he billed taxpayers $5086. Documents show public servants questioned that spending, and wrote to Newman asking why he was staying in the hotel for 32 nights, longer than had been approved.
The public servant notes the department had approved 25 days despite already having “concerns [it] was an extensive period out of market”. “What’s the reason for the extra first week before the approved travel date?” they wrote.
Newman – who also took personal leave during that period – said he had booked a longer trip to get a discount, and had paid for his own personal leave as well as his accommodation while in Newcastle for the Crystalbrook Kingsley event.
It is unclear if all of the spending revealed through the documents was approved. However, in another, a public servant noted they would reject a $211 bill Newman had sought to charge taxpayers for a business lunch at Glorietta in North Sydney.
“At $70 per head (including wine), this exceeds a reasonable cost for lunch, noting that such hospitality and entertainment is not how the NSW government does business with the private sector,” the official wrote.
Newman said the meal had been with a senior executive, and that the client had ordered a $17 glass of wine and another Investment NSW staff member had ordered an expensive prawn salad. “I could hardly take a person like that to the food hall at North Sydney station,” he said.
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