Politicians still haven’t got the message on perks

THE business world doesn’t allow managers’ families to fly business class with them on work trips, so why should our pollies expect it, asks Terry Sweetman.

WELL, that didn’t take long.

Just four days into the new year and we were confronted with another infuriating example of political indulgence.

It came less than a year after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put on his stern face and announced a crackdown on parliamentary entitlements.

The first offender for 2018 was Queensland Liberal once-was Andrew Laming, who charged us more than $13,500 to fly his wife and daughters to join him in Kununurra and to return.

You might reasonably wonder what Laming, the Liberal Member for bayside Bowman, was doing on the far side of the country.

He was there for NAIDOC Week, to meet indigenous leaders and health, education and social service providers, attend an indigenous literacy launch and discuss the trial of the cashless welfare card in the East Kimberley.

Very noble, especially as he has had no direct involvement in such matters since 2016 when he was on the indigenous affairs committee.

But, I suppose we have to admire his dedication and his inquiring mind.

Andrew Laming flew business class with his wife and kids to Kununurra. (Pic: Kym Smith)

However, you might even more reasonably wonder why he had to take his wife and kids, aged 5 and 9 at the time, across the nation and back in business class.

(For most us with young kids, business class was the first step of the walk of shame to the tail-end of the aircraft).

He wasn’t saying, but I guess he pines for them.

He did blame the cancellation of a flight from Kununurra to Darwin and alternative re-routing through Perth for lifting the bill from the extravagant to the extraordinary.

But, as he had no Parliament duties for three weeks after this occurred in the middle of last year, he might perhaps have stayed overnight and waited for a more direct and cheaper flight.

Naturally, this all fits in with parliamentary guidelines on family travel.

Laming said he tried to spend a week in an indigenous community each year and his family usually accompanied him.

Great, but I don’t think I’d have mentioned family there.

But he wasn’t alone.

Western Australian Liberal Melissa Price claimed more than $13,000 for her partner to accompany her on trips to Perth, Canberra and around her electorate.

Ian Macdonald charged taxpayers $10,000 to bring his wife to Canberra. (Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP)

Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald, who loudly lamented the abolition of the life gold pass travel retirement entitlement, claimed almost $10,000 for his wife Lesley to accompany him to Canberra. Adding narkiness to his customary nastiness, he said: “A lot of my colleagues don’t seem to want their wives around in Canberra, but I do.”

Others who dipped in for more than $5000 included WA Labor Senator Sue Lines and Queensland Labor MP Cathy O’Toole, not exactly parliamentary high flyers in other circumstances.

All this came on top of revelations that we coughed up about $350,000 in one six-month period to send empty RAAF jets across the country to pick up government ministers and, once at least, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his staff.

Those with a thing with pain might hark back to the good times of Sussan Ley, Bronwyn Bishop and opposition heavyweight Tony Burke who made hay with the taxpayer dollar, all within the guidelines. Most of us are beyond surprise when it comes to parliamentary entitlements, but I start to wonder about the psychology of the trade.

Few get into the business for self-enrichment or indulgence, with the possible exception of some of the more spectacularly greedy members of the Bjelke-Petersen government and the gangsters of Corruption Incorporated revealed (and jailed) in NSW.

But, so many of them quickly become grafters of the first order and become self-righteously blind to pubic opinion or outrage.

Here’s something there’s bipartisan support for. Labor politician Cathy O'Toole dipped in to the expenses to the tune of more than $5000. (Pic: Zak Simmonds)

During the period of Laming’s travels, more than half (132) of the 226 federal parliamentarians claimed nothing for family travel. They got the message but many didn’t.

Anyone who has ever had to travel in the course of their employment would shake their head at the expectation that we should pay compensation for the loneliness of a calling that they entered with their eyes wide open.

Anyone who has ever tried to shuffle through an iffy expense receipt after a trip would admire the front of these people.

Crossbench Senator David Leyonhjelm had limited sympathy for politicians “taking (their) kids on a taxpayer-funded holiday”.

He got it right when he said: “I use the business model as a yardstick and it would be very rare, unless you were a CEO, for this sort of travel to be allowed.”

Trouble is many of these high-flying family folk are far from foreman material, let alone the stuff of CEOs.

A few years back, when Laming got into strife for some silly and inflammatory tweets, then acting opposition leader Warren Truss told reporters he had to “take responsibility for his own actions’’.

Nothing’s changed and I very much doubt it will.