Holy Cow Taxpayers Hit with $3m Vatican Office, by Ian McPhedran, Courier Mail, June 9, 2009

Holy Cow! Taxpayers Hit with $3m Vatican Office

By Ian McPhedran
Courier Mail
June 9, 2009

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25606628-953,00.html

TAXPAYERS will fork out a massive $372,000 a year to rent a flat and office space in Rome for the new ambassador to the Vatican, former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, even though there is a modern Australian embassy just 5km away.

And another $3 million, or $12,000 a square metre, is being spent to convert and fit out an apartment to become the new office for the ambassador adjacent to the Vatican.

Rent for each property will cost taxpayers about $14,000 a month plus about $1500 a month each for service or "condominium" charges.

VATICAN bound ... former deputy PM Tim Fischer, Australia's new ambassador to the Holy See, farewells Pope Benedict XVI at Sydney airport last July.
Photo by Reuters

According to Treasury estimates, the cost of the new Holy See post will be about $11.5 million over four years or $55,700 per week.

Of this amount about $1.5 million will fund Mr Fischer's salary, allowances such as education and clothing, rent and upkeep of his official residence, plus a support staffer.

And all the expense has the sole aim of lobbying for Kevin Rudd's bid for an Australian seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Mr Fischer, his wife Judy and two sons will next month move into a four-bedroom 350sq m apartment in the Eternal City about 5km from the new Australian embassy just across the Tiber River from Vatican City.

Foreign Affairs officials last week told a Senate Estimates hearing the flat was being rented under a three-year lease and, unlike the ambassador's new office, does not require any refurbishment.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Overseas Property Group executive director Peter Davin told the Senate the refurbishment involved "substantial security features".

"There are no other anticipated costs," Mr Davin said.

While he waits for his new office, Mr Fisher - a practising Catholic - will use the main Australian embassy run by his former Coalition ministerial colleague, Amanda Vanstone.

Australia has no trade relations and minimal political links with the Holy See, or central government of the Catholic Church, so Mr Fischer's job is heavily focused on cultivating links with 79 other accredited countries.

"It (the UN bid) was part of my public instructions," he said earlier this year.

Ambassadors to Italy, also based in Rome, are banned from including the Vatican in their duty statement, so the Australian ambassador to Ireland has traditionally included the Holy See.

The Vatican job has traditionally been a haven for former Catholic politicians including Vince Gair, former speaker John Halverson, ex-Howard government minister John Herron, former Labor minister and now Catholic priest Michael Tate and convicted criminal and former WA premier Brian Burke.