Parliamentary expenses data: files, fields and method
These files power the expense comparison tool, the politician expense pages and the league table. They cover 399 Australian federal MPs and Senators over 34 quarters (2018 Q1 to 2026 Q2) and are derived from data published by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA). Updated after each quarterly release; last updated 9 October 2026. These files are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0): you may share and adapt them, including commercially, if you credit Political Gadgets (politicalgadgets.com) and link back. The underlying IPEA data is published by IPEA.
Files
| Address | What it holds |
|---|---|
/expenses/totals/index.json | Every politician with lifetime total, first and last quarter, party, state, electorate, chamber and name aliases. |
/expenses/totals/<NameKey>.json | One politician: lifetime total, spending by broad category and sub-category, and a total for every quarter (by_quarter). meta.sitting is true for current members. Example: AlbaneseAnthony.json. |
/expenses/benchmarks.json | Median politician by category for each quarter, rolling four quarters and career, plus the share of spending each category represents (mix). The latest quarter and the latest rolling-four-quarter entry cover current members only; earlier quarters and career include everyone who filed. |
/expenses/<quarter>/rankings.json | All politicians ranked by total claimed in a quarter (quarter such as 2026Q02). |
/expenses/<quarter>/statistics.json | Median claim per category for that quarter (field avg is the median total). |
/expenses/<quarter>/summaries/<NameKey>.json | One politician's claims in a quarter with the individual line items. |
/expenses/<quarter>/names.json | Politician display names, grouped by initial, for that quarter. |
Method and definitions
| NameKey | Surname followed by first name with spaces removed, for example AlbaneseAnthony. Some names are spelled differently in older quarters (McAllister/Mcallister); the totals files merge them and list the variants in aliases. |
|---|---|
| Amounts | Australian dollars, nominal (not adjusted for inflation). Refunds and credits are netted off. |
| Median | The middle value across politicians; a politician with no claim in a category counts as $0. For the latest quarter it covers current members only; earlier quarters include everyone who filed in them. |
| Party, state, chamber | Current members: They Vote For You. Former members: the party recorded by IPEA, which can label some minor-party members "Independent". |
| Not a politician | The source contains an occasional record with no name; it is excluded from totals, rankings and medians. |
See also: llms.txt · All databases · All politicians