The Finance Department has claimed it is ''not possible to determine'' whether Tony Abbott's travel to the wedding of then parliamentary colleague Sophie Mirabella was correctly charged to the taxpayer as ''official business''.
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Emails released under freedom of information laws reveal conversations between the Finance Department and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet concerning Mr Abbott's travel to Ms Mirabella's 2006 wedding at Wangaratta.
Mr Abbott charged taxpayers $1090 for the wedding trip, but repaid the amount late last year after Fairfax Media ran a series of stories about senior MPs charging taxpayers for questionable travel.
Despite the Prime Minister making the decision to repay the money, the emails suggest Mr Abbott could not rely on the Finance Department to provide guidance.
An email dated October 5, 2013, sent from the Department of Finance to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, states: ''Mr Abbott's claim for the June 2006 travel to Albury was claimed as official business as a minister.
''Finance has become aware that the travel coincided with the wedding of a parliamentary colleague - Ms Sophie Mirabella.'' The email goes on to say that Finance does not have ''access to the paperwork today … as it is held in archive''.
''On the basis of the information available it is not possible to determine whether the travel was made in accordance with the relevant determination,'' the email concludes.
The FoI request was submitted by citizen journalist Margo Kingston, who said she ''crowdfunded'' the payments for the request from members of the public.
The failure of the department in charge of MP entitlements to provide a ruling comes as the Australian National Audit Office interrogates the ''effectiveness of the Department of Finance's administration of travel entitlements provided to parliamentarians''.
In recent months, the Finance Department has refused to say whether it would examine allegations that former Coalition MP Alex Somlyay employed his wife for non-existent ''electoral office'' work.
Nor, according to West Australian MP Don Randall, could the Finance Department enlighten him on whether his overnight trip to Cairns with his wife in 2012, which coincided with the couple taking possession of an investment property, satisfied the description of ''electoral business''. Mr Randall has since repaid more than $5000 he charged taxpayers for the trip.
During the expenses scandal last year, Mr Abbott also repaid $609 he spent travelling to the Brisbane wedding of former Coalition colleague Peter Slipper. But the new emails released under FoI show taxpayer-funded travel costs of $1899. Mr Abbott's office would not comment on the $1200 discrepancy, but a Finance Department email suggests ''Mr Abbott undertook official functions on that trip that weren't related to the wedding''.
