Whilst everyday Australians are struggling to make ends meet in one of the most expensive countries to live in, our Federal and State MP's appear to be cashing in on the taxpayers dime.
Corruption has always existed, give people power and chances are at some point they will abuse it in some way.
However in the past few years, a large number of Australian politicians have found themselves at the center of taxpayer funded expense scandals.
Whilst this has been going on for generations it seems there has been a sudden surge of abuse of power and station again - most notably when the former Speaker of the House was forced to resign over illicit spending.
The Facts:
Bronwyn Bishop:
The former Speaker of the House Bronwyn Bishop was forced to not only pay back her outrageous claims, but was also forced to resign over the incident.
In July 2015 two years after taking up the role of Speaker of the House, it was discovered that she had chartered helicopter flights from Melbourne to Geelong and back to attend a state Liberal Party fundraiser on 5 November 2014.
It is important to understand the distance we are talking about, it only takes around an hour to drive this distance in a car each way - For this travel alone she stole $5,227.27.
After the news broke of the clear violation of taxpayers funds, she agreed to pay it back as well as an additional penalty of $1,307 - claiming the whole event was an "error of judgment".
This was until people started to investigate her travel expenses further, she spent $88,084 when she and four other delegates travelled to Europe for two weeks.
This included almost $1000 a day on private limousines, this was all to aid her bid for presidency of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
She was also found to have claimed $800 on flights to attend a wedding in Albury, as well as over $3,300 for car expenses in order to attend the opera and other arts events from 2010 to 2013.
In 2014 alone she claimed $800,000 for expenses, she was forced to resign the speakership on 2 August 2015 and moved to the backbench.
Four months later she announced her intentions to recontest her seat of Mackellar, claiming she had been "exonerated" over the "Choppergate" expenses scandal, and that the "threat of terrorism" had convinced her she needs to remain in Parliament.
She was unsuccessful in her bid to re-enter politics and has since moved on to Sky News as a political contributor.
Sam Dastyari:
In September 2016, it became known that Dastyari was requesting and accepting funds from Chinese companies to cover his travel expenses.
On top of this another Chinese company paid a $1,600 legal bill for him. He also spoke at a number of conferences in China and was a major supporter of China in its disputes regarding the South China Sea.
He was even accused by the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, of accepting money in exchange for his support of China over the dispute.
After first trying to sway public opinion by offering to donate all the money he had received to a charity, however the charity refused to accept the donation stating it "did not wish to be compromised" by accepting the funds.
On 7 September 2016 Dastyari resigned from his shadow frontbench position as Manager of Opposition Business and spokesman for consumer affairs, and is now a backbencher in the senate.
Sussan Ley:
In January 2017 it has been revealed that Ley claimed travel entitlements when she travelled to the Gold Coast to purchase an apartment for$795,000 near her partner's business.
She claimed that the purchase wasn't planned and didn't change the purpose of her travel to the Gold Coast, as she had attended to work matters during the trip.
On the 8th of January she admitted the purchase of an apartment had changed the context of her visit to the Gold Coast and that she would repay the government for the cost of this trip plus three others as well.
It has also been reported that she has traveled to the Gold Coast 27 times in recent years, the taxpayers funded all 27 of these trips.
On the 9th of January Ley announced she would stand aside from her duties, until an investigation into her travel expenses was completed - she also stated that she would not be making her diaries available publically.
On the 13th of January Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that Ley had resigned from the ministry, Greg Hunt and Ken Wyatt were given her previous positions effective from the 24th of January.
Julie Bishop:
During the latest scandal with Sussan Ley, it was revealed that our Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also has some expenses that simply can't be related to work.
It has been discovered that in 2015 she claimed $4,345 to travel to the Spring Racing Carnival, Included amongst these charges was a $1,235 flight for Bishops partner Mr Panton to attend.
The minister also claimed a further $2,820 to attend the Portsea Polo event in 2015 and it was also found she claimed a further $2716 to attend the same event the following year.
She also claimed a further $1,480 to attend the Bledisloe Cup in 2015, just in case you're wondering this is a football match.
In 2014 both Bishop and her partner Mr Panton travelled to the Melbourne Cup, this trip was also claimed and charged on the Australian taxpayers to the sum of $2,361.
On the 14th of January (the day of the event) it was announced that Bishop would not be attending this year's Portsea Polo event, despite previously confirming both her and Mr Pantons intention to attend the event again this year - their photo was still prominently displayed in the program.
As of yet there appears to be no consequences to these luxury expenses funded by the taxpayers, in truth since Ley's resignation there has been little mention of these claims.
My Opinion:
It is important to note that the above list is in no way complete, unfortunately there are simply too many too include all of them in one post.
I am outraged that whilst the Australian government is currently sending out False debt statements to centrelink recipients (Australian Welfare), our politicians are spending taxpayers money to fund their lives of luxury.
Since when was it acceptable to break the law, even if out of ignorance?
Simple it isn't, if I were to steal money from anyone and I was caught I would be arrested and charged.
However it seems politicians have different rights to the rest of us, they can just apologise and pay it back and it's all good again.
I mean I am sure there are plenty of people in prison for theft, that didn't realise they could just say sorry and return it and their lives wouldn't be stuck in a cell.
This hypocritical standard has to change, either the laws apply to us all or none of us - people don't just get to choose which ones they follow.
The amount of money being thrown around by Australian politicians, could be used to benefit the people of Australia rather than a select few.
I have mainly focussed on travel expenses but in truth the politicians are stealing money everywhere they can, whilst doing some research for this post I came across a couple of interesting tools - this lead me to realise just how far the extravagant spending goes.
Parliamentarians' Expenditure on Entitlements - Period 1 January to 30 June 2015
Parliamentarians' Expenditure - Period 1 January to 30 June 2016
The two links above index two different reports on parliamentarians expenditure and their entitlement expenditure, it is per state and per person and shows just how much they are claiming compared to their peers.
I would like to point out that I am aware of just how complicated the entitlements legislation can be, however these people are in a position of power and therefore should be held to a higher standard.
If the minister is incapable of understanding the legislation, than one can assume they probably shouldn't be in this position in the first place - and again ignorance is not a valid defence for anyone else, it shouldn't be acceptable for people in power.
I am sick of seeing people let off with a slap on the wrist, whilst most of the politicians I mentioned "resigned" this for the most part meant removing a title or moving from the front bench to the back bench.
Most of these people are still employed by the government and receive pay, retaining access to the same funding they have already exploited.
Not all the politicians above stole from Australian taxpayers directly Sam Dastyari, was merely accepting money from China and going against the generally perceived best interest of Australia in the process.
I am trying to show, just how varied the corruption is in Australia and the implications of what this means for us as a country.
The 10 most outrageous things pollies have spent our money on
The above is a link to a news.com.au article where some insane expenditure has been listed, my personal favorite is the Stationary King aka David Feeney member for Batman who spent a whopping $152,125.33 in total on “office administrative costs” in 2014.
According to the Parliamentarians' Expenditure on Entitlements - Period 1 January to 30 June 2015 8 Office Administrative Costs Payments made for the following:
- Office consumables and services
- Publications
- Printing and communications.
I myself have a serious obsession with stationary, however I have no idea how one could spend over $150,000 on it in one year alone.
There are so many red flags going up everywhere I look into this, it seems as though it has been going on for years and will continue to do so.
I am not sure what we can do to stop this fraud from occurring or the taxpayers coping the bill, but I think a good start would be to hold the people found breaking the law coupable.
If ministers and politicians were truly being held accountable, we wouldn't continue seeing this happen repetitively.
I believe these individuals need to not only repay what they stole from the public, but also pay a fine and to be honest they broke the law and stole and should face the full repercussions of the law.
Sources/References:
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