MP backlash as Jackie Trad moves to end pollie perk

TREASURER Jackie Trad faces blowback from members of her own party over moves to scrap a lucrative MPs’ perk.

POLITICIANS and perks seem to go together like cheese and crackers.

Whether it’s errant helicopter rides, free travel to the footy or extra gratuity just for staying in their own homes, our elected elite excel at writing rules that ensure their hands can legitimately and repeatedly pilfer the taxpayers’ pocket.

Perk put to bed

What inefficiencies?

So ingrained in the Australian psyche is the sentiment that politicians are in it for themselves that punters still believe exorbitant pensions for retiring MPs exist some 14 years after the scheme was ended.

In Queensland, another perk of questionable validity rose to prominence this week.

It is a largely unknown but lucrative little stipend that affords MPs $105 a pop for every night they bed down in the parliamentary annex accommodation while on official duties.

Yet so loose are the rules regarding this allowance that from March this year, MPs that left the parliamentary precinct after 7.30pm were still eligible.

Treasurer Jackie Trad is leading the charge to scrap the entitlement, which is currently costing Queenslanders about $500,000 a year.

She wants to recycle the money into supplying MPs with substitute electorate officers when full-time staff take annual leave.

Currently, some offices have to close for lengthy periods over the Christmas break.

“This is a sensible, fiscally responsible measure,” Trad told me this week.

“Savings will be used to support electorate staff across Queensland who, I’m sure all MPs agree, work incredibly hard.”

Treasurer Jackie Trad is leading the charge to scrap the ‘sleepover’ perk.

Good on Trad for taking on this issue.

However, her expectation that MPs would all happily agree to give up this nice little earner was a case of wishful thinking.

I’m told there have been threats from regional Labor members to fly home every night after Parliament, and back in the morning just to prove a point.

There’s even scuttlebutt some might vote against the Government on legislation dear to Trad, such the abortion Bill.

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington’s situation is equally vexing, given how many of her members profit from this perk.

There’s certainly an argument that regional ministers who live during the week in the parliament annex deserve a meal allowance, just like Brisbane-based MPs and public servants get when they venture to rural areas.

One former regional minister told me he once calculated that he was worse off to the tune of $128,000 after a long career in Cabinet under the old allowance rules, which were not so generous.

However when regional backbenchers are earning significant sums and Brisbane-based members are also being paid the perk just to show up at Parliament, there’s a problem.

For example, Member for Maryborough Bruce Saunders, who is neither a minister nor a committee chairman, pocketed $15,225 for Brisbane stays in 2016-17.

That’s 145 nights in the annex over a period when Parliament sat just 40 times.

And Grace Grace received $2940 even though Parliament House is in her Brisbane Central electorate.

Member for Brisbane Grace Grace claimed the allowance despite Parliament House being in her electorate.

Meanwhile, Queensland’s Independent Remuneration Tribunal, which will ultimately make the decision about the $105-a-night allowance, is looking at new perks for MPs who are parents.

The tribunal is currently asking MPs about a proposal to allow them to charge childcare costs outside ordinary working hours against their annual electorate and communications allowance, which is worth up to $74,500 annually.

Members would also be allowed to charge taxpayers for the cost of taking children with them on official travel trips. Flexibility for parents, particularly for mothers of young babies, is essential.

However many working parents would ask why MPs will be able to charge taxpayers for childcare when they can’t.

And they would also question why the public should pay for politicians to take kids on official travel trips.

All these allowances begin with a legitimate purpose.

But over time they get warped by self-serving politicians who lose perspective and think the public should pay for every aspect of their lives.

Just like old cheese, these MPs also start to stink after a while.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk ended up paying for her own trip to the Gold Coast.

Ticket to ride

SO WHO pinched the taxpayers for the cost of their $8.38 train trip to the Gold Coast? Among revelations Annastacia Palaszczuk and her entourage charged punters $81,000 for extended stays in plush Gold Coast digs during the Commonwealth Games was a real nugget.

Someone in the Premier’s office also charged taxpayers for their trip to the Glitter Strip on the day Palaszczuk made a song and dance about taking the train.

The Premier first sidestepped the Opposition’s questions.

A day later she insisted she paid for her own ride, and blamed a staff member for making the claim.

That stunt is proving more costly than the Government might have ever imagined.

Private Dick

SPEAKING of secrets, State Development Minister Cameron Dick has stamped a meeting as “confidential” in his latest travel report.

The get-together occurred on Dick’s whistle-stop trip to the US in July.

Dick’s official report to Parliament shows meetings with aircraft manufacturer Boeing (headquarted in Chicago), the US Navy, and biotechnology start-up Lygo. However, a 4½-hour meeting in Chicago on the morning of July 14 has been blotted out entirely with not even the government attendees or location named.

The meeting summary states that the “outcomes of this meeting cannot be disclosed due to a non-disclosure agreement”.

Watch this space.

Miner for more gold

A BLAST from the past turned up at this week’s Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference.

Queensland’s last mining warden Frank Windridge took to the stage, and many will remember the extraordinary chapter when the government was trying to give him the shaft.

Windridge had been left in the mining warden post for years after most of his ­responsibilities had been palmed off.

When The Courier-Mail ­revealed Windridge remained in his judicial job with no work – and had been applying for pay rises – an embarrassed Beattie government tried to blast him out of the gig.

Eventually he took a spot on a tribunal before retiring a few years later.

E-scooters for rent soon

THE electric scooter rental revolution is coming to Queensland.

Lime Bikes, which has taken San Francisco by storm and spread across the globe, is advertising for employees in the Sunshine State. The company seems to be side-stepping Brisbane and focusing its initial efforts on the Gold and Sunshine coasts where rentable scooters will be popular with tourists.

Still, it will present a challenge for transport authorities given our lack of bike lanes compared to other countries where scooters are taking over inner-city streets.

LNP state president Gary Spence triggered a firestorm in Canberra

Week that was... and will be

Good week: Health Minister Steven Miles, who took time out from renaming things to launch a fact checker website to debunk some of the nasty and false claims being made by the pro-life lobby about the Abortion Bill.

Bad week: LNP president Gary Spence, who told one Liberal National MP to back Peter Dutton and was soon leading a revolution. He then got cornered outside the Parliament lifts for a very awkward press conference.

Quote of the week: “I can understand how Queenslanders doing it tough could see that this was money that could have been spent elsewhere. But, as I said, the Games will return to the state billions of dollars in private sector investment” — Treasurer Jackie Trad on the huge accommodation bill racked up by politicians at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Next week: Someone will be prime minister, and the State Government will have to try to renew attempts to get a better deal for Queenslanders from federal infrastructure spending.