ALP’s hold-out MPs were each paid $109,000 in salaries alone
TAXPAYERS forked out $1.5 million in salaries and expenses to the four Labor MPs and one crossbencher who sat in Parliament for more than six months despite being ineligible because of their dual citizenship.
NSW
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TAXPAYERS forked out $1.5 million in salaries and expenses to the four Labor MPs and one crossbencher who sat in Parliament for more than six months despite being ineligible because of their dual citizenship.
As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to capitalise on Bill Shorten’s citizenship blunder, The Daily Telegraph can reveal the five ineligible MPs were each paid $109,000 in salaries alone since the High Court imposed strict new rules last October.
Labor insists it was following Australian Electoral Commission guidelines, which require candidates to take “reasonable steps to renounce foreign nationality” when it repeatedly refused to send its four MPs to the High Court.
But the High Court, in finding on Wednesday that Labor’s Katy Gallagher was ineligible, said an earlier decision handed down about Resources Minister Matt Canavan’s eligibility explicitly said that there was “no suggestion that a candidate who made a reasonable effort to comply with (section 44 of the Constitution) was thereby exempt from compliance with it”.
Since that decision, Senator Gallagher has been paid $108,500 in salary and accrued expenses of $82,900, based on the last available disclosures.
Taxpayers have forked out more than $387,000 in salary and expenses for Justine Keay, $322,000 for Susan Lamb and an estimated $332,500 for Josh Wilson.
All three Labor MPs resigned on Wednesday after the decision against Senator Gallagher because they had similar circumstances.
All of them applied to renounce their British citizenships at the last election but did not have the renunciations confirmed until after the poll.
Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie, expected to face Alexander Downer’s daughter Georgina Downer in a by-election for the seat of Mayo, accrued expenses of $229,700 on top of her base salary of $109,000.
Mr Wilson and Ms Keay both received $5990 in additional pay during the 196 days since the decision over Senator Canavan’s citizenship was handed down because they served as deputy chairs of committees.
The figures estimate total expenses over that period by using an average of costs between October and December last year, the last publicly available figures published by the independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority.
Labor yesterday insisted there was no need to have referred those MPs to the High Court after earlier rulings, and the decision over Ms Gallagher’s eligibility created a new precedent.
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“Of course we regret that, but we acted on good faith and I don’t think there is any fair-minded observer who would suggest the decision yesterday in Katy’s case — and of course Katy self-referred — wasn’t a change,” Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said.
