Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the debate around entitlements reform, and I do so because this is an issue that my constituents often bring up with me in my electorate of Lindsay. And I also note a lack of speakers from the government on this bill, the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017. I think the conversations of my community with me reflect the broader views around the country on this issue: they want to see more accountability and transparency from their parliamentarians, and rightly so, and they want to know what their tax dollars are being spent on and spent in a way that actually benefits their issues and their lives.

We all know that Australians are losing faith in our political system. They are losing faith in our collective ability to represent the issues that matter to them, as my colleague the member for Fenner has just pointed out. Too many people see parliamentarians as self-serving and self-indulgent, removed from the stresses and strains of ordinary life and too concerned with fringe issues that impact very little on their lives. I know this because, prior to entering this place, I was a single mum struggling to get by, and I was raised by a single mum who struggled to get by also. So I understand how people can look at parliamentarians and wonder how connected they are to ordinary people. In my former life before entering here I also ran a charity, and every cent that was spent in that charity was directed to the right causes.

The recurring scandals around entitlements do nothing to help people's faith in the system. It is up to us to prove to our constituents that the things we do as their representatives are valuable to them. It is up to us to improve, and to prove to our constituents that they get value for money in everything that we do.

From Bronwyn Bishop's 'choppergate' scandal to the former health minister's Gold Coast getaways, these kinds of self-indulgent abuses of taxpayer funds undermine the important work that members of parliament do, and, at a time when the average family's pay packet is stagnant and the cost of living is going up and up, the last thing Australians want to see is parliamentarians wasting taxpayer dollars. Likewise, at a time when this government is cutting support to pensioners and throwing our unemployed young people under a bus, the last thing Australians want to see is parliamentarians who are addicted to tightening the belts of others but cannot tighten their own. That is why Labor has been committed to entitlements reform for quite some time, and that is why Labor has offered to support the government to pass this important legislation.

Now this is an incredibly important point: if we do not act to improve people's faith in our political system, we leave ourselves open to extreme fringe groups who would rather spread hate and fear through our country instead of doing the important work of building and supporting our communities. So both sides of this chamber have a job to do in rebuilding people's faith in our political system.

That is why the then Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, established a review into MPs expenses some time ago. The recommendations from that review have been sitting with the current Prime Minister for almost a year. There were 36 recommendations given to the Prime Minister, all of which I will not go into, but it seems recent circumstances have hastened this government's overdue response to those recommendations.

In particular, the move to establish an Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is welcome, and it promises to provide greater accountability and transparency and more uniform advice to parliamentarians about their work expenses in this place. And, as a new member of parliament, I have got to say: I personally welcome this as well. Currently the system is governed by a multitude of different acts, regulations and ministerial directions, which contributes to the opaque perception—the sense of confusion—that undermines people's trust in the system.

Of course, at the heart of the new authority has to be value for money for the taxpayer. That must be central to these reforms, because that is the expectation of the community. And that has been made very, very clear to me.

The authority will assume many of the functions of the ministerial and parliamentary services when it comes to parliamentarians' work expenses and claims, relieving the pressure on the Department of Finance and shifting the responsibility to an independent body. The independent body will be in charge of providing clear advice to MPs and their staff and remove much of the ambiguity that currently exists.

Another issue that is often brought up with me is the Life Gold Pass, which can only be described as an anachronism that fits very poorly against the backdrop of modern budgetary household pressures. Labor has been clear and unequivocal in our support for removing the Life Gold Pass because we recognise that it sits so far outside community expectations.

While I appreciate that some people will be unhappy with this change—probably the beneficiaries of the pass, I suspect—we have to remember that this is taxpayer money: money that has been earned and forfeited by someone else, quite often earning far less than a parliamentarian. We should recognise that every dollar spent in the course of our jobs representing our community is a dollar that was hard-earned by our community. I know that there are an incredible number of hardworking MPs in this place who understand this fact, and that is why there is broad support to scrap the Life Gold Pass—apart, of course, from a few rogue coalition MPs who have decided to defend it.

Now, as I mentioned before, much of this debate centres around people's faith in the system and their faith in the idea that we parliamentarians should expect from ourselves what we legislate and regulate for others. And—at a time when this government is ruthlessly chasing innocent people for fake debts, cutting pensions, ripping money out of schools and making unemployed young people live off nothing for five weeks—the absolute least we could do in this place is to subject ourselves to proper scrutiny when it comes to spending taxpayer money. This is why ordinary people are so obsessed with MPs' entitlements, because they are constantly being attacked by this Liberal government and they do not think it is fair that they end up footing the bill for the same MPs who vote to reduce their benefits.

These reforms are long overdue, and I am proud to say that I understand why they are necessary—I get it—and I represent a party that understands why they are necessary, too. We have a job ahead of us, but it is fundamentally important that people have faith in the system and faith in their elected representatives to spend their money wisely. That is the aim of this bill, and I support it.

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