Politicians work damn hard. Let’s be careful about shredding their ‘perks’

3 months ago 30

Opinion

December 11, 2025 — 5.00am

It is an uncomfortable truth, but here we go. Most politicians work damn hard.

I have been covering politics for much of my lengthy journalism career, and most MPs who have crossed my path went into public life to make the world a little better. Not all (disgraced former NSW minister Eddie Obeid springs to mind), but most. Few of us may want to hear a spirited defence of MPs, but the reality is their job can be relentless.

Communications Minister Anika Wells arrives for a press conference on Wednesday before attending an event at Kirribilli House to mark the world’s first social media ban for under-16s.

At this time of year, for example, MPs are doing the tedious rounds of school presentation days. Sitting through your own offspring’s speech day is trying enough, save for that short moment when you take a photo of your kid on stage. But MPs have to turn up for other people’s kids. There are after-hours events, weekend community commitments, meet-and-greets. Tiresome.

There are perks, yes. But the job is rarely glamorous; nor is it all that well paid, given what is demanded of our elected officials. And our expectations are high, which is why there are two crucial aspects of politics that must be well managed. Judgment and optics.

Too often politicians fail both. Federal Sports Minister Anika Wells’ reckless decision to ask a taxpayer-funded driver to sit around for hours, racking up charges by the minute, while she was at the Australian Open tennis, was inexcusable. Same with her decision to leave a Comcar limousine waiting for nearly 10 hours while she attended the NRL and NRLW grand finals.

Wells wasted public money. The optics were terrible.

In a cost-of-living crisis, how can she justify such extravagances? The same question can be raised for the exorbitant cost of flights to New York for Wells, in her role as communications minister, to deliver a speech to world leaders on the social media ban. No one has been able to explain why it cost almost $100,000 for her, a staffer and a public servant to fly to the US.

Just because something is within the rules does not make it right. In NSW, former transport minister Jo Haylen made the foolish decision earlier this year to use her taxpayer-funded driver to ferry a group of mates, including Housing Minister Rose Jackson, to the Hunter Valley for a boozy birthday lunch. Within the rules, but poor judgment. Haylen paid the price and lost her position on Premier Chris Minns’ frontbench. And the rules around NSW drivers were changed.

While Wells has rightly been questioned about her spending decisions, which she has now referred to federal parliament’s expenses watchdog, family reunion travel is different and should be treated so. The rules around this entitlement exist to make family life more manageable, especially for parents with young children. And that’s a good thing, particularly for women who enter politics.

Wells has three young children who live in Brisbane. As an MP and minister, she would be away from home for about three months, in total, each year. She did not break any rules when she flew her husband, Finn McCarthy, to join her at three AFL grand finals (although, again, the optics weren’t good). Nor did she breach any guidelines when McCarthy and their children joined her for a weekend at a Thredbo ski resort. Wells was there for work.

Under the family reunion rules, federal MPs can claim three return business-class flights a year for family members flying between their home and a city other than Canberra, as well as the value of nine business-class flights to Canberra.

Wells is not alone in making use of this entitlement and as the feverish discussion of big spenders dominates debate in the final weeks of the year, other MPs have also been pulled in. Federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, who also has a young family, billed taxpayers $21,685 for flights and travel allowance for a week-long family trip to Perth during the 2023 NSW school holidays. Plenty of other MPs, men included, have charged family trips back to us, the taxpayers.

The role of a federal MP presents more challenges, as regards their expenses, than it does for state politicians. Both have functions, late nights. But for the federal MP, there is a second home in Canberra – and unavoidable travel. Not to be overly sympathetic, but if we want to attract high-quality people (especially women) from different backgrounds to public life, then we need to make politics manageable. Helping them keep their families, and indeed relationships, together is not unreasonable.

If entitlements such as the family reunion payments are not working, then we must find another way. MPs could be paid more, for example, and they could manage their budgets as they felt fit. But I suspect the optics would still win the debate – and not in the politicians’ favour.

Alexandra Smith is state political editor.

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