Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That has to be responded to because that is the biggest strawman argument that I have ever heard. This portrays how this government is not serious about it. When I first got elected to this place and wanted to use a travel entitlement, I rang up everyone I could find to ask, 'Is this trip that I want to do within the rules? I'm new here and I want to know whether it's in the rules.' What I was told by the departments who were just doing their job is, 'We can't tell you whether it's in the rules. You have to make your own assessment about that, and there's no way of it being judged.' That is why, for a very long time, we have pushed for an independent authority that you are able to go to before you incur the expense as an MP and ask for a ruling about whether it is in or out. If we had an independent authority like that, I bet former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop would not have got the tick for a chopper flight to Geelong and I bet several other former ministers would not have got the tick for trips to places where they were about to purchase investment properties or the like. So there is a strawman argument being put up here. There have been pushes for reform for a very long time saying, 'Let's make the rules crystal clear and let's have an independent umpire you can go to before you incur the expense so that you've got absolutely no excuse if you get it wrong.' If we did that, the public would have an enormous amount of confidence in us because they would know that someone was overseeing what we do.

The government have finally heard what the Greens have been pushing for a while—an independent umpire who can make those assessments—and they have come part of the way towards it with their next bill that is coming up. We will have a few things to say about that. That is a good step in the right direction, but it is something they have been dragged to, kicking and screaming, because some light was shone on the behaviour of their own frontbench and backbench and the public said enough is enough. But the minister said, in his comments just then, 'No-one should go to jail for a slipup.' None of us are arguing that. We are saying two things. We are saying: make the rules clear so that there can be no excuse, and put an independent umpire in place before you incur the expense so that members of parliament have no excuse if they do the wrong thing.

We are arguing that there are people who do not unintentionally slip up. Everyone makes mistakes; whether you are working for a private company or for the public, it will happen from time to time. We are not talking about unintentional slip-ups. You can fix the rules so that they are clear and so that people have no excuse but, if—once the rules are clear—you deliberately go out and flout them, then surely you have to be held to a higher standard than someone who makes an innocent mistake. If you go out and say, 'I will use public money to get myself an investment property,' or if you say, 'I will use public money to go to a personal event that has no connection with my work,' then surely that has to be held to a higher standard than someone who just slips up because they filled in the wrong form or did not dot their i's or cross their t's.

If you want to have this argument, Minister, do not build up a straw man. Do not suggest that those of us here are saying that we want people to face potential prison sentences for making a simple mistake. No, we are not saying that. We are saying that if you know what the rules are, you have clarified the rules, and if you then use public money for private gain, what standard should you be held to? If you were working for a private company and did so, you would be charged and hauled in front of a court. If you were a welfare recipient and you did not meet the government's test, you would lose your payment. If the government is seriously saying that the penalty for someone who slips up accidently should be the same as the penalty for someone who intentionally rorts the system, then they are massively out of touch. They are massively out of touch, and they should go and listen to the kind of reform that people around this country want.

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