MP taxpayer-funded claims to be released
A motion to publicly release a decade’s worth of taxpayer-funded allowance claims by MPs has passed parliament. It comes after questions were raised over the eligibility of Upper House President Terry Stephens’ claim to a benefit.
SA News
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All Country Members’ Allowance claims from the past decade will be made public in the wake of questions being raised over Upper House President Terry Stephens’ eligibility for the benefit.
It came after Labor flagged its intention to move motions in State Parlament on Wednesday that would compel Mr Stephens and Lower House Speaker Vincent Tarzia to make copies of claim forms submitted from March 20, 2010 to June 30, 2020 publicly available by 5pm on Friday.
The Opposition extended its deadline for the release of the information to July 21 before it put its motions to the houses and it passed in the Upper House.
Meanwhile, Mr Tarzia and Mr Stephens indicated they would release the requested information relating to members of their respective houses.
“I intend to publish this information, but what I am going to have to do...is I will come back to the house with a reasonable timeframe for the publishing of this information back to 2010 to occur, because...there is some time required to reasonably assemble that information,” Mr Tarzia told Parliament.
Premier Steven Marshall said it was “important that we have transparency on this issue”.
“This is an allowance which has been in place for decades, and we have no information to suggest that anything is untoward whatsoever,” he said.
Mr Marshall said parliament was awaiting the results of an Auditor-General’s assessment of the allowances.
“If we need to take corrective action well that’s exactly and precisely what we should do,” he said.
Mr Stephens had been under pressure to justify his Country Members’ Allowance after an ABC report on Sunday questioned whether he was entitled to the money.
The report stated Mr Stephens publicly claimed to live in Victor Harbor, previously in an apartment he owned but now in a leased apartment, but spent a significant amount of time at his Norwood property.
The senior Liberal MLC has denied any wrongdoing.
The Opposition has referred concerns over Mr Stephens’ entitlement to the allowance to the SA Police anti-corruption branch.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said a letter from Labor calling for a criminal investigation into Mr Stephens was being assessed by officers.
Under parliamentary rules, country members are eligible to receive a taxpayer-funded allowance for travelling to and from Adelaide for parliamentary and other official duties if the member’s usual place of residence and at least part of their electorate is more than 75km by road from the GPO.
Those who meet this requirement are able to claim $234 for each night they stay in the city, up to a maximum of $31,590 per year.
Meanwhile, Trade and Investment Minister David Ridgway told parliament on Wednesday that “through an administrative error” he failed several years ago to declare on his register of MP’s interests a rental property he owned at the time in Victor Harbor. He said he had made a “historical correction” to his record after discovering the “anomaly” on Tuesday. He said he sold the property more than four years ago.
In 2018, Mr Ridgway failed to declare his Mitcham home on his register of interests.