CANBERRA (AFP) - - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has questioned why taxpayers are funding weight-loss courses for well-padded public servants.

Official documents released this week showed the government was paying A$30,000 dollars (S$33,846) to provide weight-loss classes for bureaucrats from employment agency Centrelink.

They also revealed it paid a similar amount in Weight Watchers sessions for Defence Department workers in 2007, listing them as part of the department's "education and training" services.

Rudd, whose government last week sad it would get tough on spending after unveiling a record A$58 billion budget deficit, said he did not believe the expenditure was appropriate.

"It would be odd and unusual in the extreme for that sort of expenditure to be justifiable," he told reporters Wednesday.

"I would take a lot of persuading to be convinced that such services represent the best use of the taxpayers' dollar."

Official figures released earlier this month showed Australians are getting fatter, with 62 percent classified as overweight or obese, compared to 45 percent in 1995.

International studies consistently rank Australia among the fattest countries in the world, with the nation's Baker Heart Institute in 2008 suggesting it faced a "fat bomb" outranking even that in the United States.

Emergency services have introduced special "mega-lift" ambulances in New South Wales state capable of handling patients weighing more than 180 kilograms (400 pounds).

Undertakers also say they are stocking massive coffins, while consumer authorities are considering upgrading standards on everything from toilets to child car booster seats so they can handle heavier loads.

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