Home Affairs racks up $500k bill on Airbnb quarantine, senior official pockets $16k

A team within Home Affairs paid $344,000 to short-term property rental site Airbnb in October last year to house 72 department officials and ministerial staff returning from overseas government trips for quarantine purposes.

A Delta variant outbreak within Canberra left the federal government without suitable quarantine arrangements after the ACT government took back its Australian National University quarantine facility for positive cases within the territory who could not safely isolate from others.

But the opposition has criticised the department's decision as "wasteful", with the cost of the stays averaging around $7000 per official and some properties fetching nearly $400 a night.

Chief operating officer Justine Saunders told an estimates hearing on Monday the final figure for the arrangement, which included cleaning and associated care costs, reached a total of $522,067.

Department secretary Mike Pezzullo and Ms Saunders defended the decision to use privately-owned properties through the Airbnb site as there were "limited" options available at short notice.

The 19 Canberra properties were selected in line with strict guidelines from the ACT government, the senior figures said.

Available Department of Defence housing was identified but only 10 properties could be utilised.

Apartments and hotels were also considered but Ms Saunders said the options "weren't agreed [to] by the ACT government due to the high COVID risk".

"The option that was agreed to by the ACT government and the Department of Home Affairs as being the most suitable were properties that could be identified through Airbnb, and that was the rationale for that," Ms Saunders said.

But the ACT government has admitted it did not assess, review or inspect any of the properties, raising questions over what role it played in the process.

The requirements for suitable accommodation included it being self-contained, separate access to the property and a need for the properties to be made available for a sufficient period.

An ACT spokesperson said it "supported the use of these properties for home quarantine on the understanding that they met the advice provided by ACT Health".

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Labor senator Kristina Keneally described the decision as "wasteful", adding it could have been avoided if the Morrison government had set up appropriate quarantine facilities earlier in the pandemic.

"This extraordinary contract is the direct result of [Scott] Morrison's failings to set up a national quarantine system managed by the Commonwealth, in line with its constitutional obligations," she said.

"Instead, the Department of Home Affairs has had to scroll through Airbnb listings at the last minute to find properties where they could quarantine government officials - spending half-a-million dollars of taxpayer money at a time when Australian families are struggling to cope with the rising cost of living."

One of the properties was owned by a first assistant secretary, who allegedly alerted their senior officer to the conflict of interest when it was booked.

A Home Affairs spokesperson said the senior official was not in charge of the team responsible for organising the properties, nor did the team making bookings know he was responsible the Airbnb listing.

The first assistant secretary's property was ultimately leased between September 12 and November 30 as "no other properties [were] available", earning a total of $15,981 from the department.

Mr Pezzullo said an internal review was being conducted but so far he had been satisfied there was no wrongdoing.

Labor senator Raff Ciccone said he found it "amazing" only one property could fit the bill in all of the nation's capital.

"It just happened to be owned by a first assistant secretary or someone of that ilk?" he said on Monday.

"It's just mind-blowing."

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