2 months ago
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Less than a month after the controversy over travel entitlements for families of parliamentarians exposed the threadbare political sense of many MPs, another perk of office is under scrutiny.
Some of Australia’s frontbench politicians with second homes in Canberra are helping themselves to more than $1.5 million in taxpayer-funded allowances intended to cover accommodation costs when they travel for work.
Liberal MP Michaelia Cash has claimed the travel allowance more frequently than any other senior politician.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
According to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, opposition leader in the Senate Michaelia Cash has claimed the most of any frontbencher since the 2022 election at $123,978. She is followed by Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie with $103,939, while Treasurer Jim Chalmers has claimed the most of Albanese’s ministers – $100,095 in 3½ years.
But this handy little earner is not just confined to Canberra’s political leading lights.
Nearly one in four of 226 MPs owns a home in the capital. It is also common for MPs to live together while in Canberra to keep costs down, or to book cheap accommodation while claiming the full allowance.
While this is within the rules, MPs milking the public purse in this manner as the public struggles with the cost of living is an increasingly bad look.
Australian politicians have always been exceedingly munificent to themselves. They set their own pay for 73 years after federation and still fly first class with Commonwealth cars on call.
They also had the country’s most generous retirement funds until Mark Latham, as opposition leader in 2004, torpedoed it. He promised its abolition and the groundswell of public support forced then prime minister John Howard to ditch the golden goose super scheme from 2007. Of course, Howard and Latham retained their old benefits.
Experience suggests that federal politicians are loath to clean their own stables.
A 2016 review of politicians’ entitlements recommended the system face scrutiny every three years, at least once during each parliamentary term, but nothing has been done since 2022.
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The Albanese government squibbed on a review into travel entitlements until Sport and Communications Minister Anika Wells spent the equivalent of a house deposit flying to New York to spruik Australia’s under-16 media ban. The ensuing outrage revealed the Brisbane-based minister had charged the public purse for first-class family trips to the snow, football grand finals, cricket Tests and a friend’s birthday party. Labor moved to limit damage by announcing travel entitlements for families would be cut slightly – they’ll have to fly economy.
Wells has trimmed her itinerary; she was a noticeable absence at the McGrath Foundation’s high tea on the third day of the SCG Pink Test, usually an indelible date in a sports minister’s social diary.
Clyde Cameron, a late Labor titan, once said politicians had delusions of grandeur confirmed by first-class travel and entitlements. He insisted the perks did not corrupt but made MPs complacent and resistant to rocking the boat. Such inertia undermines trust in government.
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