Governor-General pleads for more cash to do his job after budget blowout.

The office of Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove is pleading for more cash after its eighth year of failing to make ends meet, warning the integrity of official honours could be put at risk without a funding injection.

Citing a surge in demands on the Governor-General, including a spike in the number of people applying for official Australian honours, his staff are in talks with the office of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann for a funding boost.

In the last financial year, the Governor-General's office was over its $15 million budget by $332,000, prompting the department to note it was facing "ongoing budget viability issues".

"Given these increasing activity levels the office has commenced funding supplementation discussions in order to continue to adequately support the Governor-General, maintain the integrity of the Australian honours and awards system and maintain the official properties in line with statutory obligations."

In the 2017-18 financial year, Sir Peter and his staff had 122 official events at Government House in Canberra and Admiralty House in Sydney, attended another 595 events, had 259 callers and handled almost 15,000 anniversaries such as 100th birthdays.

Eight overseas trips, including to Samoa and Vietnam, were on top of a large number of trips to rural, regional and remote parts of Australia, plus the visit of 25,000 school children to Government House.

Sir Peter, who will be replaced by retired General David Hurley next year, is supported by 80 staff. Apart from supporting the Governor-General, the office is also responsible for the maintenance of Government House and Admiralty House.

** The well presented report is here BUT Go down to where the financial statement is pages 68 to 101, good luck trying to read that a lot is illegible **

http://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/annual-reports/18585%20-%20GG%20-%20AR%20-%2017-18%20-%20accessible.pdf

** To release document like this is an absolute disgrace **
** The imputes for this thread came from one of the comments to the original article. The person provided the link to the document and pointed out the lack of quality issue **

http://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/governor-general-pleads-for-more-cash-to-do-his-job-after-budget-blowout-20181230-p50ot0.html

He should cut out some of the overseas trips and spend a bit more time at home among the people who pay his way.

Hold my judgment on this, cuts may have made it hard to run his long list of expenses we know little about

Belly that is exactly the problem the expenses are there pages 68 to 101 but they are mostly unreadable.

That has been done deliberately, you will notice some are readable with difficulty but others with mostly the important parts are totally unreadable,that is no accident.

You hold your judgement just as everyone else will because to go to him and say why did you give out such a well presented document with all the financial detail unreadable is too much trouble.

The author Shane Wright is a useless reporter or has been told to not be more detailed with the article, he did not even provide a link to it.

There is one of the main problems with MSM today, mostly useless.

Quote "In the 2017-18 financial year, Sir Peter and his staff had 122 official events at Government House in Canberra and Admiralty House in Sydney, attended another 595 events" = 1 official event every 3 days that's what I call party time.

Also 80 employees at a cost of $8 million dollars = averages to around $100,000 each (Average some higher some lower) that sound like a big problem.

Cut funding to these people, not increase it. Give funding for projects, not frivolities.