Labor senator’s extra staffer told to pay back $12,000 hire car bill

Parliament’s expenses watchdog found Senator Tammy Tyrrell’s senior adviser had inappropriately charged the taxpayer almost $12,000 in hire car fees just days before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese allowed her to retain him as an employee.

Veteran political staffer Cameron Amos, who previously worked for the Labor Party, is yet to repay the bill he racked up while working for then-crossbench Senator Tyrrell and Senator Jacqui Lambie.

This masthead last week revealed that Albanese allowed Tyrrell to keep two well-paid adviser-level staff when she defected to the Labor Party, infuriating some of her new colleagues who believed she didn’t have the workload to warrant the additional staffing.

Tyrrell’s allocation of two additional well-paid senior advisers – on top of the five electorate office staff allocated to every MP – means she has the same number of senior staff and extra resources as 13 Labor colleagues who hold assistant minister positions, or who have special envoy duties.

Amos has worked across the parliament since 2015 in the offices of Tyrrell, Lambie, former Labor MP Gai Brodtmann and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young. He played a role in bringing Tyrrell over to the Labor Party earlier this year.

Amos was based in Canberra during the period that was investigated, and would regularly travel to northern Tasmania where senators Tyrrell and Lambie were based. He believed his use of hire cars was approved and that he was saving the taxpayer money by not charging taxis for the 110km return trip between Devonport Airport and Burnie, where Lambie’s office is located.

Lambie asked the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority on February 12, 2024 to audit Amos’ use of hire cars and ensure it was within the rules.

In an audit report published in May of this year, the watchdog found it was appropriate for Amos to hire cars for transport between Devonport airport and Burnie; however, 27 hire car bookings were found to contravene the rules. In one instance, Amos hired a car for 29 days while in Tasmania.

Another Tasmania trip in 2022 lasted 12 days and taxpayers were charged more than $1300. Amos often retained use of his hire car over weekends. On another occasion, in July 2020, Amos hired a car while in Canberra for two days, racking up almost 600km of travel.

The total cost to taxpayers for the 27 trips came to $11,694.49 and Amos is yet to pay this sum back, but is negotiating with the watchdog over a payment plan.

The maximum allowable hire period under expenses rules is 10 days, and hire cars can only be used for work-related purposes. Each instance of hiring must be approved by either the MP or a designated employee within their office.

In a formal response to the watchdog’s audit, Amos said it would have been “enormously self-destructive and irresponsible” of him to bring Lambie into disrepute. He added that “unequivocally, without exception” he has never made inappropriate expense claims, and to the contrary had “frequently not claimed expenses” to which he was entitled because doing so was not “a good look”.

“It is not within my character to [make unapproved claims]. I am by no means a saint, but I am also by no means a thief. I do not rip off taxpayers by claiming unreasonable expenses or living large off their chequebook,” Amos wrote.

“To believe this account of events is to believe that some prolonged bout of insanity overcame me, for four years, but only to such a narrow and specific extent that it limited itself only to the use of parliamentary travel expenses.”

In the audit, the watchdog found no evidence “of approval for Mr Amos to keep the hire car for extended periods, or to use it for travel around Tasmania, other than travelling between the airport and his accommodation”.

In an interview at the commencement of the audit, and in later correspondence, Lambie stated to the watchdog she was intent on ensuring her staff followed travel rules. She said staff used taxis for official business and no other staff in her office used hire cars in the way Amos did.

Comment was sought from Amos, Lambie and the prime minister’s office.

Labor MPs who spoke to this masthead on the condition of anonymity said it was unfair for Tyrrell to retain staff who could have better supported more senior colleagues with higher duties such as committee chairs.

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