Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Birmingham) to a question without notice I asked today relating to politicians' travel allowances.

Seventy-five of the people sitting in parliament today own investment homes up here. Of those, 33 are Labor politicians and 42 are coalition politicians. It's a scam. The public is paying nearly $2 million a year for politicians to sleep in their own beds. It has to stop. It happens on the quiet; nobody ever talks about it. It's: 'Don't ask, Don't tell. Don't worry.'

Politicians are quietly squeezing free money out of taxpayers to line their own pockets, thanks to loopholes in the travel allowance rules in Canberra. When politicians have to travel for work, they have to stay in a hotel or a motel and they're paid a travel allowance to cover their room and their food. You only pay this if you're staying in commercial accommodation. If you're staying with a mate, you're not paying for a place to stay, so you shouldn't get travel allowance. Pretty straightforward, hey? Well, that's not how it works here in Canberra—oh no! In Canberra you get paid nearly $300 a night to stay wherever you like, and you get it tax free. It doesn't matter if you're sleeping at a hostel or the Hyatt; you get $300 a night from the taxpayer. They say Canberra is a bubble, and they might be right, because there's only one place in the country where you can charge everybody else to sleep in your own home. It doesn't matter if you sleep in a hotel or if you stay at your mate's place. It doesn't even matter if you stay in your very own apartment. You can sleep in the comfort of your own bed and you still get the same amount, nearly 300 bucks, every night when you're in Canberra.

This rule, as I've said, only applies in Canberra. How convenient! Nowhere else in the country do we pay politicians to have a mortgage—nowhere! Seventy-five politicians are charging you people out there over $20,000 tonight alone. All that money goes straight into their own pockets, not to mention the money they make out of it once they sell that housing property when they finish here. They buy a unit, leave it empty for half the year and then come to Canberra for sittings and charge us all to cover their mortgage. They make more than $1,000 every sitting week, tax free, tucked up in their pyjamas, and that's not including if they stay the weekend and don't go home!

There are Australians out there who can't even afford to pay their rent each week, let alone buy their first home, and we've got pollies giving themselves taxpayers' money to pay for their second one. Taxpayers are footing the bill for their mortgage, but the pollies keep the profits at the end. It is wrong. It is a rort. There is no reason for regular Australians to be paying for wealthy politicians to own investment properties in Canberra. Or, should I say, there's at least no good reason for that, because clearly there are 300 reasons—one for every one of the politicians, Liberal and Labor, who are happily jumping through the loophole to stay in their fancy Canberra flats this evening. They don't want to tell you that, though; they'll never admit that. Ask any politician up here why they should get nearly 300 bucks to sleep in their own home and they get pretty sheepish about it.

Let me tell you: look at Minister Birmingham this afternoon, and look at the opposition leader, who, last week, must have been pretty embarrassed to say he won't do anything to fix this rort—maybe because he knows he'll get caught out for raking in tens of thousands of dollars as well. What do they say when you ask them about it? This is what their excuse is: 'It's within the rules.' So what? Just because you can doesn't mean you should. The rules let you rip off taxpayers—so you're okay with that? I don't care about what the rules say, because, if the rules allow widescale rorting, the rules are wrong. The rules are a bad example. Go and ask anyone in your electorate. It doesn't pass the pub test. It honestly takes my breath away that anyone would have the stomach to sell themselves out for extra cash on taxpayers' dime.

The money isn't even the worst bit though; it's the attitude. Kickbacks to politicians happen because the Liberal and Labor parties write the rules for themselves. The government acts like taxpayer money is fair game for politicians to rort, and there is no opposition, because they're in on it too. Both of them have their snouts in the trough! What's new?

Public money is for the public; it's not for your mortgage. It's money that's supposed to be going to aged-care workers, rapid antigen tests and homes for people who can't afford them. These parties have ripped off taxpayers for so long it's like they can't see the problem anymore. But they're defending the indefensible and they know it. They have to stop thinking it's okay to write their own rules in a way that suits them, because Australians aren't going to put up with it for much longer. For goodness sake, find your conscience and fix it!

Question agreed to.