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The ‘dirty business’ of MP expenses · Inside Politics

0:01
S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
0:03
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, December 12th,
0:07
S1: and joining me from Canberra. We have our chief political
0:10
S1: correspondent Paul Sakala as usual, and our chief political commentator
0:15
S1: James Massola. Welcome, gents.
0:18
S2: Hello. Thanks, Jack.
0:19
S1: Today we're going to go over the expenses scandal, if
0:22
S1: indeed we are calling it a scandal that has engulfed
0:24
S1: the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, at precisely the moment when
0:27
S1: she wanted to be talking about the social media ban
0:30
S1: that was instituted this week. James, you've reported on all
0:33
S1: the expenses stories for us, and it's starting to look
0:36
S1: a lot like these. Anika Wells expenses have been raked
0:38
S1: over by, say, the Liberal Party dirt unit or other
0:41
S1: parties and then rolled out one by one to embarrass
0:44
S1: the minister at this pivotal moment. Would you care to
0:47
S1: comment on that without revealing your sources? Of course.
0:50
S3: Can we talk about how the sausage is made, or
0:51
S3: do we keep that? Do we keep that?
0:53
S1: I think that's I think that's important in this story.
0:57
S4: Jackie. You're definitely correct that some of the information that
1:01
S4: was being sourced from publicly available information, that it was
1:05
S4: being circulated by the opposition. Right. They've been a bit
1:09
S4: of a rabble. Let's be frank, for the last six
1:11
S4: months or so, and it's like they've finally woken up
1:13
S4: and gone, oh, that's right. Our job is to hold
1:16
S4: the government of the day to account, rather than tearing
1:19
S4: each other to bits. Um, so some of it comes
1:21
S4: from there. Some of it has come from government sources,
1:25
S4: as in labour on labour violence, as in people who
1:29
S4: for whatever reason are, you know, jealous of the minister
1:33
S4: and sort of wanting to take a bit of paint off. Um,
1:37
S4: you know, perhaps they want to be the next cab
1:40
S4: off the rank in terms of promotion rather than seeing
1:44
S4: her again. And then again, you know, some of this
1:47
S4: material has been sourced either independently or even by third parties,
1:51
S4: you know, sectoral interests who are, you know, disappointed with
1:55
S4: the minister and how she's handled, one or other of
1:59
S4: her portfolios. Anika Wells. Jackie, let's be really clear. Anika
2:03
S4: Wells is a very talented minister. She's risen very quickly
2:08
S4: through the ranks into cabinet, and she's made some enemies
2:11
S4: along the way. So even before you begin to reflect
2:14
S4: on her performance one way or another. Um, yeah. She's
2:18
S4: got some enemies and and those enemies have relished this.
2:21
S1: It is a really dirty business. Yeah.
2:23
S3: I'm happy to give some insight in terms of what
2:25
S3: what I understand about the genesis of some of the
2:27
S3: information as well. I was talking to a couple of
2:29
S3: people who were integral to the May election campaign on
2:33
S3: the Liberal side this week, and these are people who
2:35
S3: are no longer in the show but were senior at
2:38
S3: the time, and they both asked me, why is this
2:41
S3: all come up now? And how come you guys didn't
2:44
S3: run any of this pre-election because this research had been
2:47
S3: done in a very thorough way by the opposition and they're, uh,
2:51
S3: you know, dirt file unit, to put it crudely, and
2:53
S3: research unit to put it in a, in a more
2:56
S3: euphemistic term before the election on Anika Wells, because there
2:59
S3: was a perception that she was a big user of
3:02
S3: entitlements and she was loved the glitz and the glamour.
3:05
S3: And the difference is that when those when those, those
3:09
S3: bits of information were shopped around pre-election, the Liberal Party
3:12
S3: struggled to find a journalist interested to write them because
3:15
S3: there was no spark, which set off the chain of
3:18
S3: events that has created this scandal. That spark came last
3:22
S3: week when, just before a Senate estimates hearing, which is
3:25
S3: the last moment at which the government was mandated to
3:27
S3: release this information, the information about her flights to New
3:32
S3: York were revealed. It had that headline $100,000 number that
3:36
S3: twigs people's minds. It creates a narrative, and then each
3:40
S3: subsequent story fits into this narrative around one person. No
3:43
S3: other bit of spending looks as egregious, even though new
3:46
S3: examples emerge about other MPs. And so you get this
3:50
S3: pressure build up on the one character.
3:53
S1: That's exactly what I was going to talk about is
3:55
S1: the kind of the strange alchemy of what makes a
3:57
S1: story a story at any given moment. And as you say,
4:00
S1: it's the New York trip. And people immediately see New
4:02
S1: York as being kind of glitzy, I guess. And the
4:04
S1: $100,000 figure of the flights. And we discussed that last week.
4:07
S1: But this week the caravan kind of moved on to
4:10
S1: the family entitlement stuff, which probably a lot of voters
4:13
S1: don't even really realize exists. The family reunion entitlement. So, James,
4:18
S1: can you just tell us how that works? And, you know,
4:20
S1: so Anika Wells is publicly declared, and now it has
4:23
S1: been extensively reported that she's used this entitlement to bring
4:27
S1: her family, like her kids, to Thredbo for a work
4:29
S1: thing she was doing there as sports minister. And because
4:31
S1: she is sports minister, she's gone to a lot of
4:33
S1: grand finals and stuff, and she's brought her husband with
4:35
S1: her on the taxpayer dime.
4:37
S4: Yep. Okay, so I'll try and keep it as brief
4:40
S4: as possible. Jax. Um. Family entitlement rules. Partner of an
4:45
S4: MP can fly from home based Sydney to Canberra up
4:50
S4: to nine times a year, or the value of nine
4:55
S4: business class flights, to be very specific. Children up to
5:00
S4: three return flights from home base to Canberra, and then
5:05
S4: after that, three more business class flights from home base
5:10
S4: to city. That is not Canberra. Now, those are the
5:15
S4: sort of broad parameters. There are exceptions that can be
5:17
S4: made for ministers which allow extra flights, but that's it
5:21
S4: in a nutshell. So family entitlement rules exist to allow
5:25
S4: MPs who work very hard, like Minister Wells, for example,
5:29
S4: you know, three young kids, um, all of that, they
5:32
S4: allow MPs to try and maintain some kind of normalcy,
5:37
S4: I guess. Jacqui. Yeah. Um.
5:39
S1: Maybe maybe to stay married as well. I mean.
5:42
S4: Exactly, exactly. Um, there's a joke that does the rounds
5:46
S4: amongst MPs. You know, there's not four status levels of
5:50
S4: frequent flyer. There's actually five. It's like, uh, I think
5:53
S4: red silver. Gold. Platinum. Divorced. Yeah, right. It's a bit
5:59
S4: of a gallows humour, but it's a good example.
6:01
S3: In one of the, uh, MPs inductions, uh, meetings where
6:06
S3: they get former parliamentarians to talk to new MPs. They
6:10
S3: used to do this thing where they'd say, look to
6:11
S3: the two people around you, two out of three of you,
6:15
S3: at the end of your time in Parliament won't have
6:17
S3: the partner that you're with. Um, so it's something they're
6:20
S3: all very aware of. But I just want to go
6:23
S3: to this point, James, people have been defending these travel
6:26
S3: reunion entitlements this week on this basis that they're important
6:29
S3: to keep families together and to encourage younger parents into Parliament.
6:33
S3: And I totally understand that. But I think most MPs
6:37
S3: understand the spirit of these rules or the essence of
6:39
S3: these rules, to be kind of as follows, that if
6:42
S3: you spend a week in Canberra, for example, and then
6:44
S3: you have a committee hearing in Tasmania and you have
6:47
S3: to go back to Canberra on Monday, but your family's
6:49
S3: in Brisbane. You can pay to bring the family to Tasmania.
6:52
S3: Spend the weekend with you, see the MP for a bit,
6:55
S3: then go back home. You go to Canberra. But as
6:58
S3: this week has gone on and the Australian has done
7:00
S3: some good work on Thursday The Australian newspaper, in terms
7:04
S3: of tallying up Don Farrell and Sarah Hanson-young's use of
7:07
S3: family reunion rules, Sarah Hanson-Young appears to have used family
7:11
S3: reunion entitlements to allow her husband, who's a lobbyist in Canberra,
7:16
S3: Ben Oquist, who a lot of people, a lot of
7:18
S3: journalists know, good operator 78 times since 2022, and Don
7:23
S3: Farrell has brought his wife on 136 flights, the equivalent
7:27
S3: of 3.7 movements around the globe in that same time frame,
7:30
S3: tallying up to more than $200,000 between the two. And
7:34
S3: there's a story in The Guardian which says that those
7:37
S3: restrictions or those limits that you referenced before, James, about
7:39
S3: nine business class flights apparently don't exist for ministers and
7:43
S3: other senior office holders. So effectively, these family reunion rules
7:46
S3: can be used as much as possible, which means that
7:49
S3: an MP can bring their spouse on the taxpayer dime
7:52
S3: wherever they go, whenever, as many times as possible. Now,
7:58
S3: that might keep families together, but it. I'm not sure
8:01
S3: that I know we talk a lot about the pub test,
8:03
S3: but that seems like yeah, this is information we didn't know.
8:07
S3: And I don't think people realize that these entitlements were
8:09
S3: being used to this extent.
8:11
S1: I mean, I'm inclined to agree with you. And I
8:13
S1: think that, you know, just because you have an entitlement
8:16
S1: doesn't mean that you should necessarily stretch the stretch the
8:19
S1: limits of entitlement, but it is what it says on
8:21
S1: the tin. It's an entitlement, and they're taking what they're
8:24
S1: entitled to. Right. And people are going to use whatever
8:26
S1: they're entitled to within the rules. And as Albanese and
8:29
S1: Anika Wills keep saying, she was within the rules, within
8:32
S1: the rules, within the rules, she was singled out. But
8:35
S1: I do, and I've spoken about this with a lot
8:37
S1: of women that I know. Annabel Crabb wrote a really
8:40
S1: good column about it on the ABC online about whether
8:43
S1: or not there's a gender element in particular to Annika
8:45
S1: Wells being singled out. She's a sports minister, so she
8:49
S1: has to go to all these sporting events. If we
8:51
S1: want to attract young women who have children, small children
8:55
S1: and marriages that they presumably want to keep intact into
8:58
S1: the ministry, then we've got to allow these arrangements and
9:01
S1: these crazy jobs that they have to be a little
9:04
S1: bit more family friendly.
9:06
S4: Jacqui, I agree with you up to a point, right?
9:09
S4: I think Anika Wells is a super talent. I think
9:11
S4: she'll recover from this in time. Uh, I think as
9:15
S4: she gleefully predicted, it will be found by the EPA
9:19
S4: that everything she's done, or just about everything she's done
9:22
S4: is within entitlements. But that's the thing. And this goes
9:25
S4: to Paul's point. Like, does this pass the pub test
9:29
S4: or the kitchen table test or the common sense test
9:32
S4: or whatever? And I don't believe it does. If you
9:35
S4: look at her travel to the 50th birthday of the
9:40
S4: former Victorian MP Peter Murphy, that's the one that really
9:44
S4: sticks with me. So Anika Wells flies from Brisbane to
9:48
S4: Melbourne to go to the birthday party, which was also
9:52
S4: a living wake for a woman who died three weeks later. Right.
9:57
S4: She went to Saint Kilda Beach on the Saturday and
10:02
S4: and made a minor announcement at a surf club on
10:04
S4: the Sunday she went to a an aged care home.
10:09
S4: So she was working.
10:10
S1: She did some work engagements.
10:11
S4: She posted a couple of things on her Instagram. One
10:14
S4: of them said, I'm helping some people, some older people,
10:17
S4: and I'm quoting with their puzzle.
10:19
S1: So she was. But she's the aged care minister. She was.
10:21
S1: It was she was in she was within. She was
10:24
S1: within her capacity as a minister. She didn't go as
10:27
S1: a private citizen.
10:29
S4: No. Sure that's correct. But Tanya Plibersek, Alicia Payne and
10:32
S4: Mario Smith didn't see fit to charge taxpayers to go
10:34
S4: to the same birthday. Right. And they didn't post a
10:37
S4: couple of things like Instagram to cover their backsides.
10:40
S1: And maybe, maybe I am looking at this through two
10:42
S1: gender lens. But I just think about all the egregious
10:46
S1: stuff that male politicians have done over the years. And
10:49
S1: you want to talk about the pub test? I don't
10:52
S1: know which pubs you're drinking in, but you know, and
10:54
S1: Annabelle makes this point really well in her column because
10:57
S1: she sort of compares it to Barnaby Joyce, who's, you know,
11:00
S1: had many crimes against decent behaviour over the years. You know.
11:04
S4: No arguments here. Yes.
11:05
S1: Yeah. So I mean, I do think that there is
11:07
S1: there is a sort of family gender. Like do we
11:09
S1: want women of, you know, who've got young families in politics?
11:12
S1: There is that element to it. But I mean, Paul,
11:16
S1: what do you think? I mean, what's your sort of
11:18
S1: view on the balance between I mean, there are difficult
11:20
S1: jobs that involve a lot of travel, a lot of
11:22
S1: time away from home. Are we just being super mean
11:24
S1: about this stuff?
11:26
S3: Yeah, I think to me, if I, if I was
11:29
S3: trying to identify where the gendered element to this debate
11:33
S3: is emerging to me, I see it in the way
11:36
S3: some of her colleagues and people on the in the
11:38
S3: opposition are revelling in the criticism of her. She's seen
11:43
S3: as someone who's been promoted above her station by her critics.
11:47
S3: She presents really well. She's super confident, super ambitious, and
11:52
S3: there are many men in the Labour Party who share
11:54
S3: all of those traits. There aren't quite as many women,
11:57
S3: and I think she cops an outsized level of focus
12:01
S3: because of that. Now, having said that, I think part
12:04
S3: of the reason why people like Jim Chalmers, who is
12:07
S3: is close to Minister Wells, has not been super firm
12:11
S3: in his defence of her. And really, none of her
12:13
S3: colleagues have really wanted to defend the nitty gritty of
12:15
S3: what she's done. And the reason for that is she.
12:18
S3: If you take the critical view of how she's acted,
12:21
S3: has used every kind of trick in the book on entitlements.
12:25
S3: She's gone to Adelaide to go to a friend's birthday
12:28
S3: party and kind of created a diary of work around it.
12:32
S3: She's left Comcast for ten hours outside events. She's systemically
12:37
S3: brought her partner to the most high profile fun sporting
12:41
S3: engagements year after year. Now there is an argument the
12:43
S3: Sports minister should have their partner there.
12:46
S1: How many blokes do you think have brought their wives
12:47
S1: to the cricket and the tennis and what have you
12:49
S1: over the years?
12:50
S4: I've actually called around about this and they didn't like
12:54
S4: previous sports ministers, many of whom, but not all of
12:57
S4: whom are blokes. Don't. They just don't.
13:00
S3: Don Farrell is clearly. Does it as trade minister. Yes.
13:03
S3: And Anika Wells clearly does it. But I've spoken.
13:05
S4: To him about Greg Hunt, Richard Colbeck, Bridget McKenzie.
13:09
S3: Yeah. And speaking to some of Anika's Minister Wells colleagues
13:14
S3: this week, even some of her, her friends who really
13:17
S3: have been, you know, dealing with her every day, even
13:19
S3: those people say, look, if she had her time again
13:23
S3: and applied the front page test on some of these,
13:26
S3: this spending, which is that would you want this on
13:29
S3: the front page of the paper? She won't make these
13:31
S3: decisions again.
13:31
S1: And that and that is really pivotal. And I think
13:33
S1: it's probably been a big wake up call to probably
13:36
S1: everyone in Parliament. And I bet you, you know, the
13:38
S1: opposition is is the same. They're getting talkings to about
13:41
S1: how to be careful. It's like as journalists I, you know,
13:44
S1: you have the rule of don't put anything in a
13:46
S1: text message you wouldn't want pinned to an affidavit. Right?
13:48
S1: And they.
13:49
S3: Need.
13:49
S1: Yeah.
13:50
S3: I had a senior liberal message me yesterday saying I'm
13:53
S3: really stunned that the government hasn't found better examples of
13:56
S3: some of my colleagues use of entitlements, because there are
13:58
S3: some outrageous ones and they're all sitting there in secret.
14:01
S1: And this is the thing, right? It becomes a.
14:04
S4: Secret. Hiding in plain sight.
14:05
S3: Hiding in plain sight.
14:06
S1: It's mutually assured destruction whenever they start talking about this.
14:09
S1: So it is really interesting to see the different reactions,
14:11
S1: because I think they all know that there are skeletons
14:13
S1: in their closet or their own sort of side that
14:17
S1: they don't want exposed on the front page of papers.
14:20
S4: Jeff, you've been around as long as I have, right?
14:24
S4: Give or take a couple of years as a journalist.
14:26
S4: And no disrespect to Paul, but he's slightly younger than us.
14:29
S1: Um, I, I think it's an insult to our. Sorry. Yeah.
14:34
S1: Go on.
14:35
S3: No, that's. I'll. I'll let that one go through to
14:37
S3: the keeper.
14:38
S4: Yeah. Yeah.
14:39
S3: And it's a fact.
14:40
S4: In quite.
14:41
S3: A ways. No, no, no.
14:41
S4: You're fine. You recall that Susan Lee got tripped up
14:45
S4: by entitlements, uh, in 2017. But think back a little
14:49
S4: further to 2013. The Abbott government's just been elected. Tony
14:54
S4: Abbott's talking all about how he wants to slow down
14:57
S4: politics and get back to a more stable, normal age.
15:02
S4: Former colleague of ours, Catherine Murphy, wrote a great essay
15:04
S4: in The Guardian at the time, saying this is exactly
15:07
S4: what Tony Abbott should be doing and good on him
15:09
S4: and all this sort of stuff. You'd remember Jonathan Swan,
15:12
S4: who's now a correspondent for The New York Times, but
15:15
S4: at the time was a young, up and coming journalist,
15:17
S4: beloved colleague.
15:18
S1: And now he's very, very famous in the United.
15:21
S4: States, extremely, terrifyingly famous. He starts breaking a series of
15:27
S4: stories about entitlements. Right. Um, this is straight after the
15:31
S4: 2013 election. So October, September. October 2013. about MPs going
15:37
S4: on six week study tours in the bicycle lanes of,
15:40
S4: you know, Holland and and what have you like people absolutely.
15:44
S4: Taking the piss right. My point is this about every
15:49
S4: 10 to 15 years, these, uh, entitlements end up getting
15:53
S4: a bunch of MPs in trouble. And that's what's happening now.
15:57
S4: It's metastasizing. It's not just Anika Wells anymore. Although her
16:02
S4: use of entitlements is, uh. How how would I put it?
16:06
S4: She's used them to the nth degree. Like, she's made
16:09
S4: sure that she's claimed every single little small thing. And
16:12
S4: that's what happened in 2013 as well, right? These there
16:15
S4: were like these MPs back then. They weren't using entitlements
16:19
S4: outside the rules. They were using them to their maximum.
16:22
S3: And Wells Wells has become unfortunately for her, she's become
16:26
S3: the breakout example that sticks in the public's mind. I've
16:28
S3: been looking at some of the social media stats, um,
16:31
S3: a video that the Financial Review put up of her
16:33
S3: press club performance last week, has 1.5 million views. I've
16:37
S3: had friends who are school friends who laugh at my
16:40
S3: job and think politics is is dumb. Contact me and
16:44
S3: just say what? What's this all about? This is. This
16:46
S3: is outrageous. It's totally cut through. It's totally cut through.
16:49
S1: And unfortunately.
16:51
S3: And there's no nuance and there's no nuance in that debate.
16:53
S3: But that's how things go.
16:55
S1: And James is right. Like you're in politics for a while.
16:57
S1: You see these things kind of break out like a
16:59
S1: little grass fire every now and then, and you never
17:01
S1: know who it's going to engulf, which is always propagate.
17:04
S4: 2015 is another example.
17:06
S1: Yeah. Yeah. Well that's right. And what do people remember
17:09
S1: about Bronwyn Bishop? Not her long and storied career in politics,
17:12
S1: when she was talked about as a potential leader of
17:14
S1: the opposition at one point. They remember her chartering a
17:17
S1: chopper to take her. How long was the flight? Like
17:20
S1: 30 minutes.
17:21
S4: Oh, it was like.
17:21
S1: It was like Melbourne to Bendigo or something.
17:23
S4: 25 minutes in a helicopter. I've never taken it. I
17:27
S4: assume it's 25 minutes in a helicopter. Like most people,
17:30
S4: I've only ever driven it.
17:32
S3: Um, I thought, um, just just on Wells and how
17:35
S3: she's become the vehicle for all of this, um, grievance
17:37
S3: out there in the community, which is in some ways
17:39
S3: unfair to her. But she made this one comment, which
17:42
S3: I don't think was picked up. I think it was
17:44
S3: on Wednesday in a press conference she did just before
17:47
S3: meeting with the Prime Minister at Kirribilli House for the
17:49
S3: social media event. And I think it's another one of
17:52
S3: those comments she would take back if she had her
17:54
S3: time again. She said, you know, I understand people out
17:57
S3: there don't have much time for the political class and
17:59
S3: don't give us much breathing room. I mean, that is
18:03
S3: a really tone deaf comment to me. Firstly, to even yeah,
18:05
S3: I think to even acknowledge that you're in a class
18:08
S3: is not it's not a it's not a smart way
18:10
S3: to speak about the issue. But if you do have
18:13
S3: the consciousness that you are perceived, you're perceived with a
18:16
S3: level of unfairness. Then you should be much more judicious
18:19
S3: about the way you go about your decision making.
18:21
S1: It's very hard, I think, and politicians almost always get
18:24
S1: this wrong. In my view, it's very hard to show
18:27
S1: contrition and to take accountability for a situation without being
18:32
S1: seen to back down. And, you know, their egos get engaged.
18:35
S1: And and I think that's probably what's happened here. It
18:38
S1: is interesting obviously, James referred to this before that Annika
18:41
S1: Wells has sort of sought to draw a line under
18:43
S1: all this stuff, if you like, by referring all of
18:45
S1: her expenses and all of her use of entitlements to
18:48
S1: the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which is the body that
18:51
S1: oversees this stuff. She's the only politician to have done so.
18:54
S1: It remains to be seen whether people, you know, journalists
18:56
S1: will keep trawling through this stuff and maybe find more
18:59
S1: egregious examples from the other side of the aisle, perhaps even.
19:02
S1: But Albanese, his stance has been to firmly back his minister. Right, Paul?
19:06
S3: Yeah. Well, I was going to make that point. I mean,
19:09
S3: the the referral to EPR is not a fronting up
19:14
S3: quickly when the party has identified a problem to take
19:17
S3: it seriously. Referring to Ipea is a way to cauterize
19:21
S3: the issue in the in the medium term to just
19:24
S3: dampen some of the criticism. It was done on the
19:27
S3: afternoon before the social media ban so that the minister
19:30
S3: could meet with the Prime Minister the next day and
19:32
S3: have as a talking point that IP will look at
19:34
S3: this so they could move on to talking about their policy.
19:37
S3: There hasn't been at any point, an acknowledgement from the
19:39
S3: Prime Minister or Minister Wells that some of this spending
19:43
S3: might have been poor judgment, and the Prime Minister is
19:45
S3: not he's really the key decision maker here, not the minister.
19:48
S3: There's been no acknowledgement from the Prime Minister that these
19:51
S3: family reunion entitlements might need to be looked at. And
19:55
S3: that's in part driven by his determination to not be seen,
19:58
S3: to be giving in, not be seen, to have a
20:02
S3: cabinet scandal that might result in the removal of one
20:04
S3: of his ministers, because that would diminish the sense that
20:07
S3: he runs a stable cabinet government that has not lost
20:10
S3: a minister in his term of term in office, which
20:12
S3: he's very proud of. And so the government strategy will
20:15
S3: be to muddy up the opposition to the greatest extent possible,
20:18
S3: hope that Christmas comes and we all forget about it.
20:21
S3: Hope that EPA comes back with not too strong a
20:23
S3: finding about Minister Wells and that this all simmers down.
20:26
S1: So you think I mean, there is a there are
20:28
S1: some people saying that these rules, in particular the family
20:31
S1: reunion entitlements should be reviewed and the PM saying, no,
20:34
S1: I'm not going to do that. I don't see anyone
20:36
S1: on the other side of politics lobbying for it. Are
20:39
S1: they going to make that an election pledge?
20:41
S3: Well, Melissa McIntosh and Simon Kennedy are the only two,
20:43
S3: as far as I can tell, major party MPs who've
20:46
S3: said these rules are no good and we need to
20:48
S3: have a look at them.
20:48
S1: Okay.
20:49
S4: Yeah, I don't think. I don't think they will, Jack.
20:51
S1: Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is this is the thing is, um,
20:54
S1: I think there is there is probably a bipartisan agreement
20:57
S1: or understanding that these jobs are hard on, you know,
21:00
S1: they all believe that these jobs are hard on the family.
21:03
S1: They're hard on marriages. They're hard on your relationship with
21:05
S1: your kids. And you want to kind of leave that
21:06
S1: stuff alone.
21:07
S4: Jackie, you made that point earlier. You make it now.
21:10
S4: You made it earlier. You're right. These are tough jobs.
21:13
S4: Politicians do work really hard, you know. Yes, they're well paid,
21:16
S4: but they deserve to be well paid. And if they
21:18
S4: were in the private sector as a CEO, they, you know,
21:21
S4: quite likely a lot of them would be on $1.5
21:24
S4: million a year, not $300,000 a year or 240 or 400.
21:28
S4: But to some extent we do, you know, I mean,
21:31
S4: you do get what you pay for, and there should
21:33
S4: be entitlements to get people like Anika Wells into Parliament.
21:37
S4: Because I will say it again, she's a very talented minister, right?
21:41
S4: She's a young woman or relatively young woman. And I
21:43
S4: don't mean that in a condescending way. She's got three kids. Um,
21:47
S4: you know, we want people like that in Parliament. That's great.
21:50
S4: But that does not mean necessarily that she should be
21:55
S4: claiming some of these expenses, like the two things can
21:58
S4: exist and both be true simultaneously. Some of these expenses
22:02
S4: don't pass the pub test.
22:03
S3: There's a strong argument and some MPs make this in private.
22:06
S3: They would never make it in public that if MPs
22:08
S3: were all paid more, you wouldn't need these entitlements. You
22:11
S3: wouldn't need this arcane bureaucratic system which costs a lot
22:14
S3: of money to administrate and which, when revealed, makes all
22:18
S3: politicians look like they've got their snouts in the trough,
22:20
S3: because there's all these little tricks they can use. If
22:23
S3: they were paid at a higher rate, they could fund
22:25
S3: some of this themselves. And we wouldn't need to go
22:27
S3: through this rigmarole. But it's a brave politician who says
22:29
S3: we should be paid more.
22:30
S1: Yeah, exactly.
22:31
S4: Paul, I have to interrupt you there for a moment.
22:33
S4: They'll come up. Um, Anika Wells is on about $400,000
22:37
S4: a year as a cabinet minister.
22:39
S3: But most, most politicians are on 215 grand a year.
22:42
S4: Ago. 240. And look, are you seriously telling me that
22:46
S4: a person on $400,000 a year can't afford to fly
22:51
S4: his or her husband or wife or partner down from
22:55
S4: Brisbane to Melbourne and then back? We're talking about an
22:59
S4: $800 flight. And you're right, I can't afford that. That's
23:01
S4: what she's I mean, that's what the family reunions are.
23:04
S4: This is the Boxing Day.
23:05
S3: She could.
23:05
S4: She.
23:06
S3: Could.
23:06
S4: Fund it. Of course she can afford it.
23:08
S3: But James, as as, you know, like there are journalists
23:11
S3: on approximately the salary of backbenchers, they all still have
23:15
S3: big mortgages. They all still have expenses. And if there
23:18
S3: is an if there is an ability to get a
23:20
S3: freebie for your partner and you're on 250 grand a year,
23:23
S3: you probably try and take it. Yeah. And you're only.
23:27
S3: You're only in politics for a certain. Well, they do,
23:28
S3: but they entitlement.
23:30
S1: As I said before, an entitlement is entitlement. So they're
23:32
S1: not doing anything wrong by using their entitlements. They're literally
23:35
S1: entitled to them. But it's a very, very controversial issue.
23:39
S1: And I think most people aren't earning that amount of money.
23:43
S1: And they do see politicians as being, you know, they're
23:45
S1: more likely to see politicians as being self-interested. And also,
23:48
S1: the stuff that Anika Wells is doing is kind of
23:51
S1: fun stuff. I think that's that's key as well. She's
23:54
S1: not she's not bringing her kids to Canberra to, like,
23:56
S1: trudge around questacon like the rest of us do. Not
23:59
S1: giving away my.
24:00
S4: I won't hear a bad word against Questacon Jackie. It's
24:03
S4: it's nothing wrong with it, but it's not. Skiing at
24:06
S4: Thredbo is terrific.
24:07
S3: Yeah, the the cut through here comes from the events
24:10
S3: that Minister Wells has to go to. Yeah, I was
24:13
S3: speaking to a former sports minister who said that. Yeah,
24:16
S3: they did like to bring their partners to events, because
24:19
S3: if you go to the grand final of NRL or AFL,
24:22
S3: Gillon McLachlan or Sir Andrew Dillon, now the CEO or
24:24
S3: Andrew Abdo at NRL or Peter V'landys, they all have
24:27
S3: their partners there too. So you look like you're out
24:29
S3: of school if you don't have yours.
24:31
S1: So it would be a little bit lonely and awkward.
24:32
S1: I mean, they're people, right? Nobody wants to turn up
24:34
S1: to these kinds of things. Stag. I get it personally.
24:37
S1: And I think they want they want to stay married.
24:39
S1: So they're like, you know, honey, why don't you come
24:40
S1: down from Brisbane this weekend and we can spend some
24:43
S1: time together, even though I have to go to this
24:44
S1: work event? I get it.
24:46
S4: But, you know, once or twice, Jackie, but every grand
24:49
S4: final for the NRL, the AFL, the Formula One.
24:53
S1: I think we're I think we're never going to solve
24:54
S1: this argument. All that we can agree upon is that
24:57
S1: taking your kids to Questacon in Canberra on the holidays
25:00
S1: is a great family, fun, adventure, and very cost of
25:05
S1: living friendly.
25:06
S4: Yeah. No, no, it's it's it's a terrible idea and
25:09
S4: it's a recipe for a giant headache. And I can
25:12
S4: say that as a father of three young children, they
25:15
S4: have fun. We get the headache.
25:16
S1: Yeah, yeah. Um, anyway, see you at questacon over the summer.
25:20
S1: We will of course be recording next week. James, thanks
25:23
S1: so much for coming on. It was a very lively
25:25
S1: debate with you, as always.
25:27
S4: Yeah. Pleasure.
25:28
S3: Thanks, guys.
25:36
S1: Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
25:39
S1: from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. And
25:43
S1: special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. To listen
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S1: you for listening.