Recently, the travel arrangements of Health Minister Susan Ley
made the news. She had made many government-funded trips to the
Gold Coast, some of which had included private investment
activities. Ms Ley resigned as Minister, but stressed that she had
broken no rules. Malcom Turnbull has now announced that the Federal
Government will set up an independent agency to oversee the
expenses of parliamentarians1. The agency will be
modelled on one in the UK. It's not easy to write rules that
cover our parliamentarians' public, party and private roles,
especially if we're to pay for their families to travel with
them sometimes. But plainly the current rules don't do the job:
almost everyone caught in expense 'scandals' has claimed
that they have 'broken no rules' and 'done nothing
wrong'. The former may have been true, but the latter more
dubious, especially if judged by something like Victoria
Police's SELF test2. 
