Paterson said the \u201cpolitically convenient\u201d amendment \u201cblew apart any excuses the prime minister might have had about how it was difficult to make changes to this framework.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf he\u2019s not fixing it, if he\u2019s waiting for advice, it\u2019s because he doesn\u2019t want to fix it. And therefore, I think he has to take responsibility for every cent of expenditure from his ministers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Coalition criticism of the government on the issue has largely been left to Paterson. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, who offered to hash out bipartisan travel perks reform with Albanese on Friday, was forced to resign as a minister in 2017 after buying a Gold Coast property on a taxpayer-funded trip.<\/p>\n
Independent senator David Pocock said too many politicians have taken advantage of a system set up to make parliament more family-friendly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a change in the rules to bring more integrity into how parliamentary expenses are claimed, not loosen them further as the government did ahead of the last election,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the spike in staff travel costs during the election, to using ministry meetings as a cover for billing the taxpayer to travel to fundraisers, it\u2019s evident the rules as they stand are being abused and need tightening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who hasn\u2019t made a single family travel claim since IPEA\u2019s digital records begin in 2021, told reporters in Sydney on Saturday that the claims were a \u201cpersonal choice\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked about Farrell\u2019s amendments, Bowen said they were \u201ca clarification of the rules to make them simpler.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no change to what is allowed or not allowed,\u201d he said. \u201cThose changes, in a normal way, were made so that people are surer when they\u2019re booking their travel as to whether it was covered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paterson said the \u201cpolitically convenient\u201d amendment \u201cblew apart any excuses the prime minister might have had about how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-345708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}