Tony Abbott tried to stem the damage done by the Bronywn Bishop travel scandal by announcing a review into parliamentary expenses.
“Regrettably … there are still too many situations where members of parliament can do things that are inside entitlement, but outside public expectations,” he told reporters on the weekend when announcing Bishop’s resignation.
But a parliamentary committee already conducted a review into parliamentary expenses just five years ago — and several of the recommendations relating to travel have still not been implemented.
If this one had been, for example, Tony Burke would likely not be facing questions today about flying his family members business class to Uluru on the public dime:
“That the government remove the travel entitlements of the dependent children of a senior officer provided under the Parliamentary Entitlements Act 1990.”
The Parliamentary Entitlements Act is an odd law indeed. The list of benefits that MPs are entitled to is here. But there is no definition of what constitutes “parliamentary business” in the act and, as The Guardian’s Lenore Taylor found last week, it’s impossible to find one elsewhere, either. We can’t help but think that such a gaping loophole would’ve have been closed long ago if this law related to anyone other than politicians.
All that MPs have to guide them is “public expectations” — and increasingly it’s clear that politicians regularly claim expenses that fall widely outside of those.
We agree with independent MP Andrew Wilkie that the Finance Department should conduct an audit of all travel claims by current and former MPs during this and the previous Parliament.
Once that is done, we need a law that is able to be enforced — one with a clear definition of what constitutes parliamentary work and what doesn’t.
The Parliamentary Entitlements Act doesn’t mention chartered aircraft or flights, only, and specifically:
(a) the cost of first-class scheduled commercial services; and
(b) the use of official cars; and
(c) the use of special purpose aircraft as approved by the Defence Minister.
There is no definition for “parliamentary business” because one wasn’t — and still isn’t — needed. Likewise, we don’t need yet another law to tell politicians where the boundary between proper and improper behaviour lies. What we need are politicians who are there to conduct the Peoples’ Business, not root the system by dribs and drabs so long as they’re not caught out. We need politicians who have careers OUTSIDE of politics, who serve the public for a short time in office, then go back to those careers … or retire. You want a simple answer? Term limits. You serve no more than 3 terms such MR or 2 as senator. Period. And no lifetime gold travel pass either.
How anyone, anytime, anywhere could think it appropriate for a politician’s family to be travelling on the public dime is beyond me.
NickS & Doc have it – nuff said.
We’ve paid the big buck$ and it gave us less than monkeys so let’s try the euroid system of health care – pay from your own pocket then claim refunds for given, scrutinised reasons.
Not perfect but better.
From Peter Timmins
It was no mere ‘Parliamentary committee’ in 2010 but an independent review chaired by Barbara Belcher. The panel included John Conde now on board to do it again. The Auditor General reported in June that something had been done on 17 of the committee’s 39 recommendations. But
“there has been no formal government response to the recommendations of the CROPE (Belcher) report, or subsequent Remuneration Tribunal report, in relation to fundamental reform of the legislative and administrative framework underpinning the provision of Parliamentarians’ ‘tools of trade’.”
This time maybe they’re serious. Maybe?