# Political Gadgets – Australian parliamentary expenses

> Expense claims of 224 sitting Australian federal parliamentarians over the 2025–26 financial year (1 Jul 2025 – 30 Jun 2026), from the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA). Median per parliamentarian: $647,706. Pages are plain HTML with all figures in the markup.

## How these figures differ from IPEA's
IPEA reports claims quarter by quarter. Political Gadgets adds up the latest four reported quarters to smooth one-off spikes (an election period, an overseas trip), then compares each parliamentarian with the median of all 224 and, for House members, with similar groups. The underlying data is IPEA's; IPEA is the authoritative source. IPEA background: https://www.ipea.gov.au/reporting/background-expenditure-reporting

## Method and definitions
- Total = the sum of the latest four reported quarters of IPEA expenditure for one parliamentarian; refunds and credits are netted off.
- Window label: the 2025–26 financial year (1 Jul 2025 – 30 Jun 2026). Financial-year wording is used only when the window is exactly 1 July to 30 June; otherwise pages say 'the latest four reported quarters' with the dates.
- Median = the middle total when all 224 sitting parliamentarians with claims in the window are ranked by their four-quarter total (half claimed less, half more).
- Rank = position among those 224 parliamentarians by four-quarter total, 1 being the highest.
- Family and nominee travel IS included (attributed to the parliamentarian who made the claim, shown as its own category), as in IPEA's own totals. Small differences from IPEA's website can still occur where IPEA has revised a figure after publishing its open data.
- Former members are excluded from the median and rank. Cluster comparisons (position, seat area, state, urban/rural) cover House members only and omit any cluster with a single member.

## Static pages (plain HTML, all figures in the markup)
- Canonical hub, A–Z with totals and the top 10: https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/
- One page per parliamentarian: https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/<SurnameFirstname>.html  e.g. https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/AlbaneseAnthony.html
  Each page has: total, rank, median, latest quarter, last 8 quarters, expenses by category, all-time total, FAQ.
- Sitemap: https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/sitemap.xml

## Dynamic pages (need JavaScript)
- League table: https://politicalgadgets.com/expenses/
- Quarter-by-quarter line items: https://politicalgadgets.com/indexpenses/?<SurnameFirstname>
- Compare politicians: https://politicalgadgets.com/expensesgraph/
- Data files and field definitions (static): https://politicalgadgets.com/expenses/data/

## Highest claimants, 2025–26
- Anthony Albanese: $4,332,351 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/AlbaneseAnthony.html)
- Don Farrell: $2,048,707 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/FarrellDon.html)
- Penny Wong: $1,998,670 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/WongPenny.html)
- Tony Burke: $1,876,217 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/BurkeTony.html)
- Richard Marles: $1,844,249 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/MarlesRichard.html)
- Madeleine King: $1,753,924 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/KingMadeleine.html)
- Tanya Plibersek: $1,595,291 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/PlibersekTanya.html)
- Jim Chalmers: $1,584,396 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/ChalmersJim.html)
- Anika Wells: $1,574,327 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/WellsAnika.html)
- Tim Ayres: $1,571,692 (https://politicalgadgets.com/Expenses/AyresTim.html)

## Source and licence
- Data: IPEA via data.gov.au (https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/current-and-former-parliamentarians-expenditure-1-april-to-30-june-2026), CC BY 3.0 Australia; latest release 2026-09-02.
- Political Gadgets compilation: CC BY-NC 4.0. IPEA is the authoritative source.
- Generated 2026-10-22.