The MP expenses claims row is grubby but not, sadly, a surprise

THE worst part about the expenses claims that have shamed the Labor Government is that there’s nothing surprising about this grubby episode, writes Shaun Carney.

• ‘Honesty system’ for entitlements to end

THE Victorian Cabinet can meet every day for the next month to ponder ways of ensuring that MPs entitlements cannot be rorted, but it will be wasting its time. Unless, that is, it decides to give MPs no discretion at all when it comes to claiming allowances.

If the historic political disaster of losing a Speaker and Deputy Speaker in a stroke because of their misuse of allowances tells us anything, it’s that when it comes to some individuals, human nature will always find a way to make the most of any set of guidelines.

That is the stomach-turning lesson to be drawn from the antics of the now-former Speaker, Telmo Languiller, and his now-former deputy, Don Nardella.

It’s hard to overstate how damaging this episode has been. Until the weekend, when they realised that if they didn’t resign, they’d be sacked, Languiller and Nardella had been charged with upholding and defending the integrity, behaviour and honour of the Legislative Assembly.

For that, they were handsomely compensated on top of what is, by community standards, the very healthy base salary of $148,210 paid to every state parliamentarian. But that wasn’t enough. Although Languiller represents the people of Tarneit, Laverton North and a fair chunk of Hopper’s Crossing in Melbourne’s west, he’s been claiming that his primary residence is in Queenscliff — a long way from the house-and-land packages and industrial estates that constitute his electorate. Under the rules, that claim has entitled him to an allowance of more than $37,000 a year because his residence is more than 80km from the CBD — and he claimed it. Then, when this was revealed late last week, he offered to pay it back.

Telmo Languiller quit as Speaker over the allowance row. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Nardella, the member for Melton, has favoured another seaside destination as his home: Ocean Grove. For that, he’s claimed $100,000. Again, a very different community to the one he’s employed to represent: there’s no surf in West Melton. But so far, Nardella is refusing to return the money, insisting that because the rules enabled him to take it, it’s his.

The best advice is that under the rules, there was nothing stopping Languiller and Nardella from claiming this money.

Parliamentary rules do not require MPs to live in their electorates and Labor imposes no such requirement on its caucus members. Nor was there any rule that stipulated the allowance was restricted to MPs whose seats were outside the metropolitan area. The guidelines were full of holes big enough for the ex-Speaker and his ex-deputy to drive their government cars right through them. The only thing that could have stopped them was something that can’t be guaranteed, can’t be codified, and that’s their conscience.

Of course, this is about money. But it’s also about something deeper and more profound than that. What is it that happens to some people when they enter public office? The common refrain from critics of the modern Labor Party is that its parliamentary ranks are peopled by the middle class — whitebread, university-educated apparatchiks and eggheads with no “real-life” experience. That can’t be said of Languiller or Nardella.

Languiller is a Uruguayan immigrant who was a labourer, orderly and an interpreter before working for a union and then two federal Labor MPs. Nardella was a welder before becoming an organiser with the Victorian ALP office. All the same, their long careers in parliament — 16 years for Languiller and 24 years for Nardella — could hardly be described as stellar. Filling the Speaker’s chair was definitely the highest point of their service and now that privilege is lost.

The point to remember in all of this is that the tens of thousands of dollars that they received in these allowances did not arrive unbidden, landing gently in their Queenscliff and Ocean Grove backyards via fluffy little white parachutes: they had to bone up on the guidelines, work out what they could get and lodge their claims.

Don Nardella favoured Ocean Grove as his home. Picture: Kris Reichl

That is surely the most disturbing part. Why weren’t their big salaries and the knowledge that after leaving politics, they’d be getting annual six-figure parliamentary pensions enough? And wasn’t the honour for men from blue-collar, non-Anglo backgrounds to be able to represent other working people in the western suburbs, many of whom barely have a brass razoo, a reward as well? Why chase the extra dollars just because the rules were sloppily drawn?

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy insists that unless Premier Daniel Andrews makes Nardella repay the money, he’ll be “complicit in this rorting”. It’s hard to see how Andrews can force Nardella to cough up, but you can’t blame Guy going full bottle. This is an extraordinary scandal — for its moral dimensions as much as anything else.

As for the Premier, he has to hope that this doesn’t lead to an unpleasant by-election or two.

Meanwhile, an audit committee will look into it all, and the rules will be tightened, making it harder for anybody else to do what Languiller and Nardella (and any other MPs we don’t know about yet) have done. That’s all well and good, but in any parliament in the country, you’ll have members who work and exploit the system, grabbing at every last buck and bending the rules.

Sadly, those who hope all politicians will be better than that, adhering to higher values, are always bound to be disappointed.

Shaun Carney is a Herald Sun columnist and adjunct associate professor of politics at Monash University