Generous MP super value for taxpayers

POLITICIANS offered themselves for charitable endeavours on retirement.

MARK Latham and John Howard have a lot to answer for.

Between them they killed off the generous parliamentary superannuation scheme for federal MPs, in the process lowering the quality of personnel interested in embarking on a parliamentary career and forcing former MPs to turn to endeavours such as lobbying once they left politics.

While the public has always been cynical about the "snouts in the trough" image of the old-fashioned super scheme, which gives three or more term MPs an annual apportionment of their salary for life (variable up to 75 per cent), it was a valuable mechanism for attracting quality candidates to give up otherwise lucrative or rewarding careers.

It also meant that at the conclusion of their time in parliament they could pursue options that didn't simply involve making a living.

Regularly this led politicians to offer themselves and their high profile to charitable endeavours.

The change to super entitlements occurred in 2004 when Latham pursued reform on populist grounds and Howard, at the time trailing in the polls, worried that if he did not give in to the opposition leader's demands he wouldn't be able to turn things around in time for an end of year election.

Of course the change only applied to politicians who were not yet elected.

And while Latham committed himself to coming off the generous scheme if elected prime minister, because he lost the election and walked away from politics he is now able to work as a part-time opinion columnist while supplementing his income with, you guessed it, the very scheme he pushed to have abolished.

At the time Latham made the comment: "I'd hate to see the day where people put remuneration and financial reward near the top of their list of the reasons why you run for parliament. You need a democracy where people want to serve the public. This is not a money-making venture."

The statement sounds reasonable enough in isolation, but the impact of scrapping the super scheme is more complex.

Nobody should seriously think that going into politics is the pursuit of a pay packet. Your average backbencher earns approximately $130,000 a year and for that they have to endure public invasions of their privacy, constant questioning about their motives and ambitions, and the reality that half the population at any given time doesn't agree with what they have to say.

In addition there is little job security in what they do. If the public doesn't turn on them at an election their party might do so at the pre-selection stage.

And then there is the travel; spending nearly half the year in Canberra is isolating and hard on families.

While undoubtedly some people go into politics for the wrong reasons -- ego and power -- most do so because they believe in policy positions they would like to see implemented or community standards they would like to see reached.

Either way, while it sounds a cliche to say so, they want to make a difference and public service is a way to do so.

A political career should not be a natural continuum of a pre-parliamentary career for every MP.

In other words, you don't just want former staffers and political operatives becoming our elected representatives.

While some such people have and always will go into politics (which is a good thing), a vibrant civil society needs a mix of representatives.

But without the security of the super scheme, lawyers, doctors and various other professionals will think twice about going into parliament, if for no other reason than because when it is over they will have been so long out of their professions that returning can become professionally difficult.

Aside from the potential to deter good people from going into politics in the first place, the removal of the generous super scheme keeps the wrong people in the parliament for longer.

Previously it was easy for parties to tap individuals who were not adding value on the shoulder. In some cases, if they had previously been a minister they could earn more by taking their super than remaining on the backbench. This allowed for renewal.

Finally, even if good people go into politics, and even if they can be convinced to leave once they are no longer value-adding, many such former MPs are increasingly now going into political lobbying because they don't have super to tide them over.

This is extending the closed shop of political deal-making into relationships that politicians have with the business community as companies clamour to hire former MPs to help open doors to government.

Scrapping the generous super scheme is the kind of idea that will always be supported by the public.

But so would scrapping income tax. That doesn't make it the right thing to do. It should be reversed to improve the quality of applicants for parliamentary service.