Win two elections before claiming perks, says former NSW premier

ROGUE MPs are pushing to have our short-lived prime ministers stripped of their lifetime gold passes.

Barry O'Farrell says we need to get tough on perks for former prime ministers.

FORMER prime ministers would have to win two elections in order to claim taxpayer-funded perks.

They would also lose those entitlements after 12 months, under a tough proposal from the man who smashed the political gravy train in Australia’s largest state.

News.com.au can also reveal that the tribunal which rules on politicians’ pay has been considering a new regime for former PMs for so long — more than five years — that it forgot it was considering it.

The high farce of political travel and other entitlements ignited debate once more this week, with breakaway conservative senator Cory Bernardi and his former Liberal colleague Ian Macdonald calling for prime ministers who had not served at least a full term to be denied the infamous “Life Gold Pass” travel entitlement of 10 free return business class trips a year.

This would deprive former PMs Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott — indeed, every prime minister since John Howard left office 10 years ago.

Senator Bernardi has suggested that this would stop rewarding PMs who had failed to serve a full term — a noble but perhaps slightly odd rationale, given that none of the PMs actually chose to be knifed.

Barry O’Farrell with Kristina Keneally.

The churn through prime ministers is known in political circles as “the New South Wales disease” because it emulated the strategy of the NSW Labor Right in mowing through three premiers in 2008 and 2009 before knocking off Kevin Rudd the following year and ushering in a new era of leadership instability in Canberra.

Now the man who killed off that disease in NSW says the federal government should look at his crackdown on perks for former heads of government.

Under rules introduced by former premier Barry O’Farrell, premiers have to serve five years — ie. win at least two elections — before being entitled to perks such as an office, car and driver. And even then those perks are restricted to 12 months after the premier has lost office.

“The NSW model works well in NSW and I’m sure it’s capable of being adapted to a system where the terms are shorter,” Mr O’Farrell told news.com.au

“It’s worked for NSW taxpayers and there’s no reason it shouldn’t work for national taxpayers.”

Mr O’Farrell — who himself fails to qualify for the benchmark he set after resigning midterm in 2014 — said the new normal of churning through political leaders meant you couldn’t give all former leaders access to “the gravy train” — there were simply too many of them.

“I said this has to stop — it’s the revolving door of leadership and it has a major cost to taxpayers.”

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Julia Gillard.

News.com.au can also reveal that the current entitlements system for PMs is such a basket case that even those in charge of it appear unsure of exactly who’s in charge of it.

Entitlements for current PMs are determined by the Remuneration Tribunal but for former PMs they are administered by the Department of Finance. Yet, bizarrely, the notorious “gold pass” travel entitlement for former PMs is decided by, wait for it, the current PM.

This was precisely the same absurd situation that Mr O’Farrell got rid of in NSW: “If you’d been deposed or resigned you would get the incoming premier to write you a letter telling you what you were entitled to.”

Indeed, a review of entitlements in 2010 by respected senior public servant Barbara Belcher recommended “a legislative head of authority for providing benefits to former prime ministers”.

The Remuneration Tribunal said in a report in December 2011: “The Tribunal will provide further comment on this proposal when it completes its consideration of (this) recommendation.”

When contacted by news.com.au today — which is, it is worth noting, February 15, 2017 — the Tribunal was initially unaware that the proposal was under its consideration.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Russian President Vladimir Putin cuddle koalas at the G20 summit in Brisbane.

“It’s not something that falls under the tribunal, and the tribunal is not considering the issue,” a spokesperson said.

When it was pointed out that the Tribunal had said in its own report that it was in fact considering the issue and would comment once it had finished doing so, the spokesperson said: “The Tribunal hasn’t commented.”

However they did add helpfully: “The recommendation is referenced again in its most recent (2016) parliamentary review at page 136 under a heading ‘Revisiting previous reviews’ as something that there could be benefit in revisiting.”

I mean whoa there! Let’s not rush into things. Fortunately the wheels of government move much quicker when it is taking money off pensioners.

Even so, Barry O’Farrell says keeping the purse strings away from public servants might be a blessing in disguise given the largesse of the Remuneration Tribunal in recent years.

“If you’re going to have an external agency deciding entitlements you need someone with all the generosity of Ebenezer Scrooge,” he said.