The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has exposed a $3 million miscalculation by United leader Peter Dunne.
Mr Dunne said yesterday that public servants commuting to Wellington were costing almost $5.3 million a year, largely as a result of IRD staff.
It cost the department $3,946,368 for 30 staff, based on staff commuting for one month only, with the cost annualised on the assumption of a similar number of staff over 48 weeks, he said.
But an IRD spokesman said Mr Dunne had calculated wrongly: instead of multiplying the May figure of $82,216 by 12, he had multiplied it by 48.
The right figure for IRD commuting was $986,592 based on the May figure; this brought the overall total to $2,268,955.
Mr Dunne had surveyed all Government departments compiled from written parliamentary questions to find 82 public servants were commuting to Wellington weekly.
IRD still had the highest commuter expenditure, followed by Land Information New Zealand, which has 10 commuting staff costing $411,000 a year; Department of Corrections, seven staff, $259,536; and Work and Income, six, at $241,488.
The chief social worker at the Department of Child, Youth and Family, Mike Doolan, who commutes from Christchurch to his job in Wellington, cost taxpayers about $25,000 in the 1998-99 year.
Mr Doolan has spent the past six years commuting to his job, meaning the bill to the taxpayer could total more than $145,000.
Mr Dunne said he was absolutely staggered at the survey results and was sure the public would be too.
"I accept that there will be times when people have to commute to Wellington as part of their job, but I had no idea it was a way of life for so many public servants and that the taxpayer was picking up the tab to such an extent," he said.
"It is outrageous and makes a complete mockery of the Government's claims to be introducing new standards of behaviour in the public sector."
Mr Dunne called on the Government to toughen rules for meeting the costs of public servants who chose to commute to Wellington.
- NZPA
Dunne's sums on commuters $3m out - IRD
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