After having finally secured Bronwyn Bishop's resignation at the weekend, Prime Minister Tony Abbott took the only sensible course open to him – a review into MPs' entitlements. "Plainly the system that we have is deficient," Mr Abbott said. "The public deserves to be absolutely confident taxpayers' money is not being abused." His desire to placate voter disgust at Ms Bishops' vice-regal travel arrangement notwithstanding, Mr Abbott's proposal is conspicuously belated. And if previous reviews of MPs' entitlements are any guide, the government may do little to implement any recommendations, particularly if it feels the storm has blown over. Mr Abbott would be foolish to adopt such a course of action, but given his dogged loyalty to Ms Bishop (and other misdemeanours committed since coming to office in 2013) his capacity for bad judgment cannot be underestimated.
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That Mr Abbott should have found himself in bad odour over MPs' entitlements is unsurprising. He himself has exercised considerable leeway in claiming sums for travel ostensibly undertaken for ministerial business, electing to repay monies after it emerged that the prime motivation for several trips was extra-curricular activities. The lack of clear guidelines is said to be the reason so many politicians have trouble with differentiating legitimate from dubious entitlement claims. But when the prime minister himself is careless with both the rules and the spirit of the system, then other MPs are likely to follow his example. Mrs Bishop seems to have been an avid devotee of travel by limousine and private aircraft, and of luxury hotel stays, when more modest travel and digs would not have been a major imposition. And there is a suggestion a staffer was linked to one of the aviation service providers used by the Speaker. No one in the prime minister's office seems to have thought Mrs Bishop might benefit from a quiet word on the need for restraint at a time when this was the Coalition's fiscal war-cry.
The price Mr Abbott is paying for this extraordinary lapse is a further drop in his personal approval ratings and renewed backbench disaffection at a time when many Liberals are still smarting over the leeway granted to his chief of staff Peta Credlin. A revamp of entitlements which included the enunciation of firm guidelines, precise rules, and clear principles (and which vested oversight in an independent authority) would go far in restoring public confidence – if not in Mr Abbott then in the entitlements system as a whole. Nor is a lengthy review needed given an independent committee reviewed entitlements in 2009. Its 39 recommendations, however, are still awaiting a formal government response.
Were Mr Abbott further determined to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, he would allow the House of Representative to choose the next speaker (as the Constitution intended) rather than insisting it is his gift. A Speaker with some semblance of impartiality and bipartisan support would be a welcome development. But given Mr Abbott's inability to change course (and his insistence that executive authority trump parliamentary sovereignty), it seems a forlorn hope.
