The ACT's politicians have used thousand of dollars of the territory's taxpayers' money to pay for interstate trips to party conferences.
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But there is nothing in entitlement guidelines to state that party-related trips cannot be written off as ''study trips'' or claimed under ministerial travel allowances.
Documents published by the Legislative Assembly show that since 2009, ACT Labor, the Canberra Liberals and the ACT Greens have all dipped into official travel budgets to the tune of thousands of dollars to fund trips to party political get-togethers around the country.
The most recent instance was in December last year when Deputy Chief Minister Andrew Barr claimed $2066 from his travel allowance to pay for his travel to the ALP's national conference in Sydney where he represented ACT Labor.
Last year Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur claimed $1548 to attend the Green National Council Conference, and her colleague Shane Rattenbury claimed $860 to attend another Greens council in Brisbane with both the Greens' members claiming the travel as ''study'' trips.
In 2009, Canberra Liberals leader Zed Seselja claimed $3595 for travel with his wife to Sydney and Hobart for a Liberals' federal council and a meeting of the party's state and federal leaders, with both trips accounted for as study tours.
Former ministers Jon Stanhope and John Hargreaves claimed $596 and $1700 respectively to attend the 2009 ALP national conference in Sydney.
After a series of questions from The Canberra Times to each of the parties, only one, the Liberals, indicated they would be willing to consider reform to the system so that party business would be paid for by the party or by the member.
A party spokeswoman said the Liberals believed that it was ''legitimate'' for taxpayer funds to be used for interstate party activity but that they would consider changes to the guidelines.
''There is a legitimate argument for members of all sides of politics to visit colleagues interstate and nationally when they are discussing a range of policy and platform issues,'' the spokeswoman said.
''On the other hand, if there are suggestions for a different way of applying the guidelines, we would be more than happy to give them due consideration.''
A spokeswoman for Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said that ministers were always ''mindful'' of money spent while on official trips.
''Domestic travel within the minister's travel budget is at the discretion of the minister providing it conforms with conditions as set out by the Remuneration Tribunal,'' the spokeswoman said. ''Travel by a minister in this case is consistent with the entitlements as they apply to non-executive members.
''Ministers are always mindful of the expenses they accrue in relation to use of ministerial travel entitlements.''
Greens leader Meredith Hunter said that the trips by the crossbench party to catch up with their interstate colleagues were valuable.
''The point of the travel allowance is to allow members to learn new things and bring new ideas to the Parliament,'' Ms Hunter said.
''There is a distinction between political activity in the sense of elections, and party conferences and meetings where policies and ideas are developed.''