This idea is in line with my view that "If they make the laws for us, then we should make the laws for them."

One point you haven't mentioned is punishment for breaking the rules.

You can have all these reviews and recommendations and changes to the system but ultimately it all amounts to nothing but another waste of taxpayers money if you don't put some punishment in place for when they don't do the right thing.
We want to provide some 'incentive' to not do the wrong thing in the first place.

Its the same thing with election promises.

I say garner or forfeit their future post-office entitlements if they show contempt towards the Australian people by any of the following:

Lying to the Australian public.
Not keeping election promises.
Ripping Taxpayers off.
Bad management of Government.

If they continue to do the wrong thing put them in jail.
- Not a regular jail, one built just for them with regular comforts.
We can use the excess taxpayers money they spend on lavish office refits to build it.

Create a foolproof system and be done with it.

A problem is the idea of "entitlements" versus "expenses".
A member of an organisation is only entitled to be re-imbursed for costs arising out of performing results-achieving work for that organisation.
The question of justification is an issue that ranges from factual evidence of expenditure made to achieve those results, to the subjective opinion of whether the expenditure is necessary.
This approach is covered well in taxation returns where expenditure is only permitted for income-generating activities, not for wish fulfillment.
Any person claiming funding from another is only "entitled" to be re-imbursed for legimate "expenses", costs which are necessary and true, not costs which arise out of attempting to have that other person pay for something which the claimant chose as a discretionary purchase.

"We put trust in our elected representatives to govern and spend our money in our best interest."

No we don't.

And never did - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf5Jn8O3s0c

We need to place a completely independant tribunal in charge of so called "entitlements", which according to Joe Hockey has had its day!

Those who need to draw money to recover legitimate business or work related expenses, should be obliged to ask someone besides, the rubber stamp that does it now, and whose very employment is down to the goodwill of the folks they're giving permission to to spend our money!?

Perhaps we need to elect an assembly of old and grumpy old codgers for around ten years, (theres plenty of those) and a decade of wielding that much unsackable power would be plenty, and allow them to say, yes this passes the pub test and this doesn't!

I mean there's a perfectly good train to the Alice and sleeper accommodation.

And I dare say would allow an entire family to travel there for the price of a single business class airfare!?

And if it was good enough for Mrs chamberlain to sleep in perfectly acceptable family oriented tent accommodation?

Perhaps if these very privileged folk were required to mix a little more with the common herd, we'd finally get some sensible and long overdue reform coming out of Canberra?

As opposed to the current carte blanche that allowed a former Speaker to spend the best part of a $100,000.00 of our money in an effort to get herself elected President of the V.I.P. world?

In any event there should be a limited bucket of money allocated to each member or minister or shadow, depending on the scope of their duties, and any and all savings added to the salary or retirement package at the end of every financial year?
Rhrosty.

"Get citizens involved". That's a good one! The mongrel pollies get away with what they do because they know citizens NEVER GET INVOLVED. The citizens are too lazy, thick and uncaring. They think that life will always be they way it is now. They don't even know about the 'by the people' idea of democracy, and they are slowly losing the right to have democracy, which they give away every three years to the same self-serving idiots who laugh all the way to the bank.

Yes ttbn; around a reported 40% of totally apathetic young folks can't be bothered getting out of bed to go down and vote?

Then bitch the house down about the fact that affordable housing is a thing of the past, never looking at their own spend like there's no tomorrow hedonistic behaviour; partying, clubbing, binge drinking, social drugs, and other money burning behavior; all while bludging on the oldies?

Besides that, around 30% of the rest of us, don't understand politics or the actual issues? Another 30% don't have a clue about the economic realities, and it's this 60% that decide elections or hold our pollies to account!?
Little wonder there's little change or getting someone to actually consider overdue reform ,is virtually impossible?
Rhrosty.

Rhorsty,
Quote "As opposed to the current carte blanche that allowed a former Speaker to spend the best part of a $100,000.00 of our money in an effort to get herself elected President of the V.I.P. world?"

I think Kevin Rudd did the same thing a few years back when he was PM, but he did it with 40 million.

If I recall correctly, he gave this 'out of the blue' donation of 40m to a UN body to help people in Africa.

IMO, this could be taken as some UN butt-kissing to shore up some future employment as well.

Now I'm not necessarily against helping other less fortunate people around the globe, but I think its a little treasonous to spend on foreigners when we have our own people (that worked hard to build this country) on hospital waiting lists.

Take care of our own first.
If there's anything left over then and only then do we look at helping others.

Embarrassing parliamentary expenses in the minds of listeners, anecdotally proves government transparency. The media gain credibility for exposing something that no person goes to jail.

The end result is that distraction guides listeners attention away from many important ideas of concern: Suicide between the ages of 14 to 44 is quoted by the media to be the largest causes of deaths in Australia in that age bracket. Ice is an often presented media mention concern, yet state police are left to fall short of fixing the problem.
My belief is that bad, really bad education is traumatising teenagers learning ability, as to allow most teenagers to be truck driver skilled labourers. Government Education is torturing children into teenager agers into keeping themselves dumb. teenagers leaving school literally hating anything that feels like learning something complex.
Teenagers suffering from learning traumas self-medicate themselves into eventually taking illegal drugs, becoming addicted to illegal drugs. Alcohol used to medicate government education becoming alcoholics.

The fact governments usually fear losing control over populations, having governments controlling education systems is a matter of concern. Yet political embarrassing stories distract ideas like the above.

Few people can think that most social problems are caused for bad education, that leaves most teenagers unable to perform complex tasks other than basic labouring employment. Teenagers are being educated down to poor thinking emotional decision making manual labours.