The game might be up for Defence Department employees rorting taxis and hire car spending, with better forensic checks planned for fares in the "small hours" of the night.
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Plans for a crackdown are outlined in the government's response to a 2016 Auditor-General's report on Defence's management of credit card and other spending, which found public servants had billed taxpayers for more than $3.3 million worth of events at private golf courses, sports memberships and entertainment over three years.
The damning report revealed taxpayers were charged for more than 1200 taxi trips between 1am and 4am over three years, when little work-related travel was required.
Defence employees also spent more than $35,000 of government funds to pay for traffic fines, including one instance when an employee sped through a school zone in western Sydney and used a corporate credit card to pay the $278 fine.
The driver's unit within the department was issued with a $1258 fine for failing to nominate the person responsible, but that fee too was charged to taxpayers.
Responding to the audit recommendations, the department said it had enhanced forensic data and analytics capacity and its own internal audit and fraud divisions were stepping up reviews.
Defence agreed to crackdown on the high use of specific taxis as well as multiple expensive taxi fares and travel in the "small hours".
It also agreed to make public on the department's website the results of any investigations.
"Defence is conducting testing of high value taxi fares as part of their forensic testing regime," the department told federal Parliament.
"Defence agrees that the results of forensics data analytics finding be made publicly available in relevant Defence publications, however details will be limited to aggregated information such as frequency and costs but not include members details.
"The investigations of fraudulent matters are reported appropriately."
Defence is seeking legal advice from the Australian Government Solicitor about more transparent reporting of disciplinary action taken against public servants found to be rorting the system, and is investigating ways to publish the results of criminal and disciplinary action.
Better training and information programs about spending on official credit cards is planned, and employees under 18-years-of-age will be issued with cab vouchers.
Defence did not agree to asking the Australian National Audit Office to complete performance audits every two years and said it would not overhaul rules about cash advances from official credit cards.
It said access to cash from ATMs was needed for when payment by card was not available, including in small businesses and remote locations.
Official credit cards have a default cash transfer limit of $0, and of the 8633 purchase cards issued, only 34 had cash withdrawal access. More than 63,000 Defence employees had internal travel cards which have cash withdrawal access.
The audit found credit card limits ranged from $500 to $2 million, with three card holders able to access a $1 million limit and another 107 cards capped at $250,000.
In 2015, 125 Defence employees had collective access to $13 million of taxpayers' money.
The audit found that 35 per cent of transactions were approved by someone working in a more junior role than the cardholder.
Credit cards were used most often during May and June. The audit warned parts of the workforce were trying to spend their allocated budgets before the end of financial year, to ensure similar funds were granted in future years.
