With all the world agape as the London Daily Telegraph shreds the entire parliament of Westminster to pieces over MPs rorting expenses local media have apparently been sent out to find similar stories.
It’s not like our parliamentarians are noticeably more moral than their British counterparts is it?
What our local lads and ladies have got going for them is the foresight to get their expenses exempted from Freedom Of Information laws many years ago so it’s much harder for the media or the public to go digging into what they’re after.
Undeterred, News Limited have found a bit of a story to get their teeth stuck into.
It involves MPs buying a house here in Canberra (apparently presuming their tenure in parliament is going to be over many parliamentary terms), staying in it for four or five months a year, and claiming $215 a night in travel allowance for every night they’re staying in their Canberra home.
The MPs involved don’t think there’s anything wrong with this at all. It’ll be interesting to see what more comes to light.