senior office holders – including government ministers, the Senate president, the House of Representatives speaker, the opposition leader and deputy opposition leader – are allowed to bring their spouses almost anywhere, with no cap on costs.
I actually think this is a non-issue. These are the most powerful people in the country. There are extremely few senior office holders. I would much rather have taxpayers pay for travel than Rupert Murdoch or Ginna Rineheart.
I’m as disappointed in our pollies as anyone, but if we don’t want corruption we need to treat them something similar to business executives. I’d go further than that - we should have generous superannuation to avoid them currying favour to work with powerful interests when they leave. Both these measures are insurance against corruption.
They have all that and are still corrupt. It’s a nice idea in theory, but shown to be useless in practice.
At this point, upon swearing in, they should have to forfeit everything they own, never be allowed to invest or have any job ever again, and in return they get whatever the current Centrelink payment is.That, and very strong repercussions if youre caught taking bribes, general corruption, favouritism/nepotism, etc.
Really make them keen for the job but terrified to even think about taking a bribe.
