Malcolm Turnbull: Brits should learn about allowances from us

I'm sure it's never a slow day out there in Oppositionland, but Malcolm Turnbull also today sent this response to my article in New Matilda:

Peter,
I read your piece and cannot agree. The allowances to Australian politicians are very transparent and independently determined. The travelling allowance for Canberra for example is a flat rate which everyone gets regardless of where they stay. There are no provisions for upgrading duck ponds, or buying flat screen TVs or any of the scandalous nonsense we have seen in the UK.

I think you will find the UK moves to a system like our own.

The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP
Leader of the Opposition
Federal Member for Wentworth

To which I replied:

Dear Mr Turnbull,

Thank you for your response. There is no question that the allowances are independently determined and with a little digging you can find out what they are.The point is that how the allowances-electoral, travel, printing, communications, etc- are spent is not transparent. There are even questions- first raised eight years ago by the Auditor General and again in Estimates Committee in February this year- about whether some expenditures on behalf of parliamentarians by the Department of Finance and Deregulation (which spends $390 million running its support services for parliamentarians) are confirmed and signed off as properly incurred. No information is published on the web by Parliament or Finance (other than global amounts for some travel) about expenditure of allowances . Neither is the Register of Interests available in this way. None of the three departments that service parliament and pay some allowances-combined expenditure this year of $318 million- are covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Nor is this part of the Government's FOI Reform proposals.

All in all, I doubt the British have much to learn from us on this aspect of accountability and transparency.

Peter Timmins

The learning is for us, not them

The UK MP allowances expose rolls on (now 3500 articles listed on Google News) with Prime Minister Gordon Brown stating any Labour member who defied the rules won't be running in the next election, and scalps on the rise, the latest the Speaker of the House of Commons.

But ABC European correspondent Phillip Williams knows something I don't about how the Brits could learn from us in this area. Or Williams is in need of a spell back home for orientation. This from his chat about Michael Martin's departure with Tony Jones on Lateline last night:

"Well, very simply, Tony, because he's been seen as stopping reform, stopping the sort of reforms that would've meant that we had a more open, transparent like Australia's, where the receipts would've been public knowledge. He actively stopped freedom of information requests that would've revealed these now. And so he's seen as being a blockage, supporting a system that's now thoroughly discredited and has led to so many MPs being on the nose."

Very simply Phillip, receipts for payments by Australian parliamentarians from allowances are not public knowledge.The Parliament over there is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Here it isn't.

My local member of Federal Parliament is Malcolm Turnbull MP. I've sent him a copy of the New Matilda article and look forward to his response. If you follow suit, glad to hear of any reaction.

Update: The Daily Telegraph has done some digging into the Register of Interests and identified 40 parliamentarians who own or are in the process of buying a property in Canberra. No scandal to my mind but where their travel allowance payments go is information that should be disclosed as a matter of routine.