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Tourism Australia has defended its resolution to make use of taxpayer funds to supply free lodging in Sydney for its most well-paid worker — whereas showing to verify the individual additionally stored his empty house in China on the similar time.
Crikey revealed on Tuesday that the company’s China-based government common supervisor for japanese markets and aviation, Andrew Hogg, spent most of 2020 in Australia whereas persevering with to obtain the beneficiant advantages related together with his posting in Shanghai. Crikey just isn’t suggesting any wrongdoing by Hogg.
Later the identical day, high executives on the tourism company fronted Senate estimates the place they had been grilled by a senator demanding to know why it was essential to spend such an “exorbitant sum of money” on Hogg’s allowances.
Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison stated that with the advantage of hindsight, she would have performed nothing otherwise.
“We didn’t know when he was going to return [to China]. He was in short-term lodging [in Australia], and we offered … he left his house, you understand, pondering he was going away for per week. It was nonetheless there [in China] with all of their stuff in it,” Harrison stated.
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Hogg had left China for a household vacation in Perth in January 2020 and obtained caught in Australia when the federal authorities launched border restrictions in February. In the meantime, China shut its personal borders to foreigners and didn’t reopen them till September.
In response to Tourism Australia sources who spoke to Crikey on the situation of anonymity, Hogg was put up in a home within the prosperous Sydney suburb of Manly. Tourism Australia confirmed to Crikey it had paid for his lodging throughout his time in Sydney.
Greens Senator Dorinda Cox had a printed copy of Crikey’s article in her hand whereas questioning Harrison.
“Nowadays, after we are in a price of dwelling disaster persevering with on from the pandemic … I believe the common Australian would need to know what these particulars are in relation to what a few of our senior executives are being paid,” she stated.
“It was a really unprecedented time,” Harrison responded. “He was working actually exhausting … maintaining the spirits of [colleagues] going.”
At one other level within the listening to, Harrison stated she had requested Hogg to come back to Sydney from Perth as soon as the dimensions of the pandemic turned clear to “work out what we had been going to do, what our response was going to be”.
“All of it occurred very, in a short time, and he wasn’t simply there at my leisure, he was there working exhausting with me to attempt to work out what our response could be,” she stated.
Whereas posted in China — together with the time he was caught in Australia — Hogg was Tourism Australia’s most well-paid worker. He made $819,983 in the newest monetary 12 months, together with all advantages, allowances and superannuation, far more than Harrison herself, who obtained a complete of $536,792 in the identical interval.
Harrison informed the Senate her predecessor as managing director had agreed to match Hogg’s contract situations at Qantas when he was employed to supervise Tourism Australia’s China operations in 2015.
“We’d had a interval of instability and hadn’t discovered the correct individual to run China, which was our greatest and rising market, so the managing director on the time took the choice to seek out probably the most succesful and skilled individual they might,” she stated.
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“That was Andrew Hogg, who was already primarily based there, and so they matched his situations, which was a mixture of wage and different preparations. And that’s why it was, I suppose, an anomaly on the time when it comes to the remainder of the organisation.”
As Crikey beforehand reported, it’s unclear how a lot cash was spent on Hogg’s lodging throughout his time in Australia. As a result of the time Hogg spent in Australia straddles two totally different monetary years — and since Tourism Australia has refused to interrupt the funds down by calendar years — the precise sum is unclear.
However in the course of the two monetary years from 2019 to 2021, annual studies say Hogg obtained a complete of $453,374 in advantages and allowances. Of that sum, $104,002 was paid out within the 2019-2020 monetary 12 months, whereas $349,372 was paid out within the following monetary 12 months.
Harrison quibbled with that sum throughout her proof, wrongly claiming Cox had incorrect data.
“I’m undecided the place you get the $450,000 from … it’s reported in our annual report, it’s not that quantity.”
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