This was published 13 years ago
To the 491,000 whom it may concern: Abbott splashes out on personal stationery
By Mark Davis NATIONAL EDITOR
THE Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, used his taxpayer-funded parliamentary entitlements to print 491,000 sheets of personalised letterhead before the federal election - enough to send direct-mail to his Sydney electorate of Warringah five times over.
Mr Abbott's office did not know yesterday whether his letterhead had been used for mailouts during the election, but said it was ''a bulk order of stationery for normal office use'' and that any use had been within the rules on MPs' entitlements.
But the Opposition Leader was outdone in the pre-election stationery stockpiling stakes by a Queensland Labor backbencher, Shayne Neumann, who printed a whopping 1.3 million sheets of letterhead at the start of the year.
Mr Neumann, who retained the marginal seat of Blair at the election, said yesterday he had used the letterhead for a number of electorate-wide mailouts - he could not remember how many, but still had a lot of the stationery in storage for future use.
He had ordered such a large amount to get a better deal for taxpayers. ''Whether you are buying smallgoods or ordering meat, if you get things in bulk you get it cheaper,'' he said.
Department of Finance figures show Mr Neumann and Mr Abbott were among 15 federal politicians - 10 Labor MPs and five Liberals - who ordered more than 200,000 sheets of personalised letterhead during the first six months of this year.
This was despite concerns raised by the Auditor-General about MPs using their taxpayer-funded printing and postage entitlement, including letterhead, for electioneering.
In a report last year the Auditor-General said letterhead had been used extensively in the 2007 election to distribute party materials and the rules were unclear on whether this was allowed.
That prompted the federal government to cut the entitlement to about $130,000 a year and introduce guidelines against party content in MPs' newsletters and brochures.
But the rules remain grey on using letterhead for direct-mailing of election campaign material.
A spokesman for Mr Abbott could not say whether, or how much of, the Opposition Leader's letterhead, had been used for campaign mailouts.
But the spokesman said none had been used for mailouts in electorates other than Warringah. Federal electorates typically have about 94,000 voters.
The figures show the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, and Julia Gillard both printed 5000 sheets of letterhead in the first six months of the year. Figures for the second half of the year will be published in the middle of next year.