Surely it would not take much to devise a sensible, fair system of travel claims for Members of Parliament. Businesses large and small in Australia deal with travel claims by employees without a great deal of difficulty. Indeed, the very MPs who are enmeshed in allegations of travel-claim rorts imposed upon Australian business extremely intricate requirements for recording employee claims for travel, meals and other expenditure under the fringe-benefits tax legislation.
If an Australian company had paid to its employee money in the same way the Australian Government paid Senator Nick Sherry or former Science Minister Peter McGauran, it would expect a bill for fringe-benefits tax. Companies are required to differentiate between actual expenditure at a legitimate level and payments to employees for accommodation not actually purchased or payments at such a luxurious rate that part of it must be deemed private benefit. Fringe benefits tax must be paid on the latter. If companies are forced to detail the difference, surely it is not beyond the wit of federal politicians to.
It is quite preposterous from Senator Sherry and Mr McGauran to be paid up to $300 a night for staying with relatives. Apparently it was quite lawful and legitimate, in which case the rules should be changed.
As a general principle, public money should not be spent without receipts. That said, there may be some administrative convenience and, indeed, benefits to the taxpayer in having a system that allows for some allowance payments without the need for receipts, but the level of payment must be reasonable. Senator Sherry’s mother is not a public figure, but one must wonder at her reaction to the news that her son got such a generous allowance for staying with her.
Perhaps a system could be devised where MPs must deliver receipts to get a claim, or failing the production of receipts a modest allowance for staying with friends or relatives could be paid, but nothing like $300 a night.
And it appears a thorough look at MPs living arrangements in Canberra is warranted. What allowances are being paid for nights spent in Canberra and how to they compare with the actual cost of staying here? Given MPs spend a fair time here, it is fair to assume they can make cheaper semi-permanent arrangements that would not be possible with one-off visits elsewhere in Australia.
Obviously the best scheme in the world can be defrauded, rorted or run to the letter by an MP determined to extract the maximum allowable benefit. It would be better if there were an underlying honesty, morality and sense of shame among MPs that would obviate the need for a detailed, rigid regime of travel-expense acquittal. But apparently that is not the case. The travel rorts are neither restricted to one side of politics, nor are they only isolated in incidence. Events of the part fortnight reveal that unacceptable claiming is so widespread that the whole Parliament is tainted by the scandal. It requires urgent remedial attention, not a drawn-out process to institute a new system, to restore public confidence in the Parliament.
This scandal, though admittedly one involving comparatively small sums on the scale of political scandals, is made worse by the fact that hitherto federal politics in Australia has been virtually free of financial scandal, unlike state politics. That fact makes remedial action the more urgent.