Senate debates

Tuesday, 11 March 2008

Parliamentarians Entitlements

5:31 pm

Photo of John FaulknerJohn Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to item 13(d) on the red, tabling of documents by the Clerk, I seek leave to make a statement about printing entitlements.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I do so because, today, regulations have been tabled to reduce the printing allowance for members of parliament from $150,000 a year to $100,000 a year. These regulations bring into effect three changes which the government believes will strengthen our democratic processes by removing some of the more egregious abuses of incumbency. As well as cutting the printing allowance for members of parliament by one-third in these regulations, the government will abolish the option for members of parliament to roll over 45 per cent of their entitlements to the following year. These regulations also cut the printing allowances for senators from $20,000 per annum to $16,667.

It is undeniable that in recent years the Howard government increased parliamentarians’ printing allowances to inappropriate levels. Prior to the last election, with members of parliament having a printing allowance of $150,000 per annum and being able to roll over 45 per cent of that allowance to the next year, more than $240,000 could be spent by a single member of parliament in a single year—in a single election year. This cannot be justified as appropriate spending. The combination of the rollover and the increased level of the entitlement allowed members of parliament to build a war chest for election spending out of moneys originally designed for communicating with constituents and the community. This, of course, is taxpayers’ money.

It is worth taking a brief look at the history of the printing allowance. This entitlement was originally uncapped. The Auditor-General’s report on parliamentarians’ entitlements in Audit report No. 5 of 2001-02 found that there was an excessive use of printing entitlements by some members of parliament. The report found that, although the average spend by a parliamentarian on printing over a year was $37,000, some members of parliament—from both sides—were spending more, far more. The then government indicated that they would review the entitlement but did not move on the issue before the 2001 election. In 2002—after the election—the then government capped the allowance at $125,000 a year but provided for a rollover component of 35 per cent. In 2006, after a review of the entitlement and just in time for the 2007 election, the cap was upped to $150,000, with the rollover component raised to 45 per cent.

Members of parliament and senators, in my view, do have legitimate reasons to communicate with their electors. Electors have a right to know what their members and senators are doing on their behalf. Newsletters and electoral bulletins are a legitimate way of communicating the work that the government—and the opposition—is involved in. Not all Australians are regular readers of the Notice Papers and the bills list. For many, it may only be through the work of their elected representatives that they find out about proposed legislation, regulations and policies that have a direct impact on their local areas and their lives.

The government has no objection to these genuine and justifiable uses of the printing allowance. As the Australian National Audit Office said in a review of parliamentarians’ entitlements in 2001:

The role of Federal Parliamentarians is demanding and multifaceted … arrangements for the support provided to Parliamentarians need to facilitate the outcomes required of them in the conduct of their official, parliamentary and electorate business. To serve the public, Parliamentarians require the appropriate level of support both in terms of resources and services.

However, we also believe that all members of parliament but most particularly the government, which takes responsibility for the wise use of taxpayers’ money, must bear in mind that the printing allowance comes from public funding, and it must be used in the public interest and must be of an appropriate level. I want to go on the record as saying that the government considers the state of affairs under the previous government to be an abuse of taxpayer funded entitlements that should never have developed and should never be allowed to recur. The government has a view—I have a view—that $100,000 a year is a reasonable maximum expenditure of public money on printing allowances, allowing parliamentarians to reach large numbers of people in their electorate.

The changes contained in these regulations will save Australian taxpayers up to $22 million over the life of each parliament. They will undoubtedly also save untold numbers of double-sided colour leaflets from the recycling bins of Australia. And they will go a fair way towards preventing our federal system from becoming so heavily weighted towards incumbency that the contest of ideas comes a poor second to the battle of taxpayer funded promotion. I commend these regulations to the Senate.

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