00:00Well, we've had the Prime Minister announce a little later than expected sweeping changes
00:07that he's now recommending to those family travel entitlements for politicians.
00:13This was all meant to go down a week ago, but obviously was delayed by the Bondi terror
00:18attack taking place.
00:20What he's announced is a bunch of changes to specifically the family travel.
00:25So this includes things like no longer allowing spouses and children to travel in business
00:31class, limiting travel to predominantly being between Canberra and the electorate rather
00:37than to other parts of Australia, and also putting some restrictions on senior politicians
00:42who had even broader remit to bring their families with them.
00:45This was all sparked by scrutiny of a series of travel entitlements used well within the
00:53rules by Sports Minister Annika Wells, who had flown her husband to several sporting events
01:00while she was there working, also taken her family, including her children, to Thredbo,
01:05where she was there for a Paralympic event.
01:07And that sparked this kind of snowballing of scrutiny on a range of different ministers.
01:13We had Attorney General Michelle Rowland recently announced that she would pay back part of a
01:18family travel expense charge to taxpayers after getting advice from that independent authority.
01:24So pressure had been building on the government.
01:27And here are some of the changes that the Prime Minister is now recommending take effect that
01:31will be considered by the Tribunal in the new year.
01:35We have recommended a number of changes as a result of the consideration by the Independent
01:44Parliamentary Expenses Authority. And those proposed changes would be, firstly, the all-family
01:51reunion travel must be booked in economy class. Secondly, to remove access to Australia-wide
01:58family reunion travel and restrict to Canberra and within a parliamentarian's local area or
02:05electorate. In a senator's case, of course, that's a state.
02:10And Clare, I don't know how many people you've had the opportunity to speak to in the wake
02:13of this, but are these changes being seen as generally the right way to go or gone too
02:19far or not far enough? And what happens now?
02:22Yeah, well, so a lot of the problem and the controversy around these rules at the time
02:27was that they don't meet community expectations, the so-called pub test. So we've had a little
02:33bit of reaction from the opposition saying they want to look further at these details.
02:39We had Kevin Hogan, the Nationals Deputy Leader, saying that they seemed pretty reasonable.
02:44We've had statements from Senator James Patterson and Senator James McGrath saying, sure, we'll
02:50look at these details, but we think that the government was kind of dragged to this position
02:55and we want more scrutiny of some of those expenses I talked about before. So at this stage, I think
03:00it's pretty clear that most politicians realise they're not going to make any friends saying
03:07that they want more entitlements and more ability to spend taxpayer dollars. So at the moment,
03:12it looks like the government's changes are going to be welcomed.
03:14And yeah, so what's the process with this now?
03:17So the government doesn't actually control the rules. That's something that Anthony Albanese
03:22has been very focused on in trying to distance himself from some of these scandals. He's made these
03:29recommendations to the remuneration tribunal. They're due to meet next in early January in
03:34the new year. They'll consider them. And if they decide to adopt them, and I can't imagine
03:39that they wouldn't, then that will come into effect. One thing to note, though, the prime
03:44minister has asked that the tribunal take special consideration of politicians who are new mums
03:50and dads, who have young dependent children on them, noting that, of course, politicians,
03:55politicians, as much as we sometimes like to bag them out, they do spend a lot of time
04:00at work. They don't have entitlements to things like, you know, maternity leave. And we do
04:05need to sort of allow them to see their families while they're working around the country.
04:08And we do need to see their families while they're working around the country.
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