Prime Minister Tony Abbott says reforms to make federal MPs’ travel more transparent and less prone to abuse are unnecessary.
His comments come after two weeks of revelations over parliamentary travel claims – including his own – and a wave of repayments by federal MPs who admitted making inappropriate requests for travel reimbursements.
Asked to explain why taxpayers should help politicians compete in sports events and attend colleagues’ weddings, the PM, speaking in Brunei on Thursday, said there would “always be arguments at the margins” and amending the rules would achieve little.
“I’m not proposing to change the system,” said Mr Abbott. “You don’t want members of parliament to be prisoners of their offices.”
“Politicians are entitled to travel when the travel is reasonably related to their office and that’s what all of us do,” he added.
Under the current rules, federal MPs can claim travel expenses anywhere in Australia for “parliamentary, electorate or official business”.
Mr Abbott has been criticised for claiming more than $23,000 on trips to sporting events and $1300 on travel to compete in the 2011 Port Macquarie Ironman competition, which he claimed as “official business”.
The PM also claimed some $1700 in expenses for attending the weddings of former Coalition MPs Peter Slipper and Sophie Mirabella in 2006, which he repaid last week.
Meanwhile, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has suggested that MPs write reports on their reasons for domestic travel; downgrade from business class to economy for flights of less than two hours; and be asked to repay double the amount if they make incorrect claims.
Senator Xenophon, speaking to the ABC last week, called the current rules ambiguous and vague.
“They need to be reformed. We shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture that $34.5 million was spent in the last calendar year on pollies’ travel.
“We can shave millions of dollars off that by insisting that politicians fly economy…, requiring MPs to provide a very short, two or three line statement every time they have a trip, to simply say what the trip was for, they can go online, be open to scrutiny by the media and the public within a month.”
The SA senator added that the system would be improved if members of Parliament incurred a penalty for inappropriate claims.
“If an MP does make a mistake, the default position should be you pay back double the amount. That should focus all our minds in relation to dealing with this.”
Maria Vamvakinou MP told Neos Kosmos that a new set of guidelines clarifying what constituted “parliamentary, electorate or official business” was needed.
“There are lots of loopholes. You need better education on entitlements to members of Parliament. We need more clarity and we need clearer definitions of what parliamentary work is.
“When you tick ‘I was there for parliamentary business’ that’s a very broad sweep. isn’t it?” said Ms Vamvakinou.
“For me the big test is what Mr Abbott himself said the other day: ‘if you’re not sure, err on the side of the taxpayer’.
“It’s what you think is reasonable, and you instinctively know.”
With Labor and the Coalition reluctant to change the system, the Greens have said they will introduce a private member’s bill when Parliament resumes to appoint a National Integrity Commissioner to prevent entitlements abuse.