Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I just wanted to make a couple of extra remarks. I would like to ask the minister, through you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough: does the minister recognise that a flat penalty of 25 per cent for the first offence, for the second offence and for the 20th offence will not restore the community's faith in us, which they currently do not have? We are at such a loss in this place as far as community respect for us goes. It will provide very little thought or understanding within the community that we are trying to address this.

Does the minister believe that that is an acceptable penalty when there are repeat offences? It could happen; it has happened before. We only just saw it in the summer where, unfortunately, we had a health minister who was found to have travelled many, many times. Even though that was within the rules of entitlements, it affected every single one of us in here and it brought us down below choppers. It brought us down, and people have such little respect for us so that I think we need to, as a parliament, look a little closer at ourselves and be a little tougher on ourselves for the benefit of all of us, for the benefit of the wider community.

As the member for Denison said, this is about right and wrong. This is about us being able to very clearly see when something is right or wrong and act as leaders in our community, which is what we are supposed to be when we walk into this place. At the moment, the community has very little faith and very little trust in us, and these measures are about restoring that trust.

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