Let those without sin

If Bronwyn Bishop should resign, then so should Mark Dreyfus

The revelation that Speaker of the House Bronwyn Bishop used her MP entitlements to charter a $5,000 helicopter trip from Melbourne to Geelong has been rightly labelled excessive and unjustifiable.

However, Labor frontbenchers who have spent the last week calling for Bishop's resignation would be well advised to examine the plexiglass covering their own party's dalliances with taxpayer funded entitlements before throwing any more stones.

According to Bill Shorten, Bishop's actions were "shameful" and "colossally arrogant."

Perhaps. But if so, then what of Senator Helen Polley's $26 000 bill chartering flights between Launceston and Hobart?

Polley claims her duties as a backbench Senator kept her so busy that economies of time required her to catch a plane instead of a car. But as Government whip Andrew Nikolic has deftly pointed out, once time spent boarding and disembarking at either end and transport to and from the airport is factored in, the $26 000 exercise could only have saved Polley less than an hour. Just how busy was poor old Polley?

Shorten has accused Bishop of 'wafting around above our heads in taxpayer-funded helicopters' while at the same time 'cutting the incomes of vulnerable Australians.'

But when we peel away Shorten's class warfare invective, are the cases of time-poor Polley and toffee-nosed Bronwyn Bishop really that different?

Julia Gillard, a politician who made much of her credentials as a warrior of the working class was also partial to aerial junkets underwritten by taxpayers during her time in office. In 2013, she chartered a private jet to Byron Bay to attend her press secretary's wedding, presumably at far greater expense than a comparatively paltry $5000.

Gillard was of course smart enough to spend a few hours opening a newly upgraded section of the Bruce Highway so that the charter could be deemed 'official business.' Even accepting this, the idea that a Royal Air Force Charter an appropriate, much less necessary trimming to hold a press conference outside a refurbished stretch of road is bemusing. Indeed, for those professing concern about the publicly funded largesse of the political class, it might even be labelled arrogant.

Shorten has been joined by several of his colleagues in demanding Bishop's resignation as Speaker. Whether Abbott sacks her has been dubbed by Shorten a "test of Abbott's leadership."

But where was Labor's high-minded regard for the integrity of the Speaker, a keystone of our Parliament, when allegations far more egregious than Bishop's chopper ride were levelled at Peter Slipper? Does Labor think a public crucifixion of the current speaker will atone them of their sins when they wilfully ignoring the misdeeds of the Speaker they installed while in government?

Where also do these statements leave shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who just a few years ago billed two nights at a luxury ski resort to the Commonwealth credit card?

As a respected Queens Counsel and former first law officer of the Commonwealth, what justification did Dreyfus have for leaving longsuffering taxpayers to foot the bill for his family's mid-winter getaway?

Even the Greens; the self-styled lone apostles of virtue and integrity in Australian politics cannot claim to be sin free when it comes to heavy handedness with the public purse. Senator Larissa Waters spent more than any other Queensland state or federal MP refurbishing her plush electorate office in the inner city suburb of Paddington, including outdoor patio and artificial turf. At a cost of $414 000, the only MP to outspend Waters across the whole country was South Australian Senator Anne Ruston.

There is good reason for both sides of politics when discussing the use and abuse of politician's entitlements to tone down the righteous grandstanding and puerile pot shots. This is because with endless travel commitments and vaguely drafted rules, MP's from all parties have found themselves guilty of erring on the side of profligacy more often than parsimoniousness.

The public's disdain for Australia's political class is already at an all-time high. Rather than parading every incident of entitlement overreach as evidence of one sides moral impropriety, a more fruitful solution would be a clearer set of rules so that politician's are given clarity from the outset about expenses are covered. On this front, the mooted idea of an independent office tasked with approving all expenditures sounds promising, if somewhat impractical. But Labor would do well to realise that continuing to scapegoat Bishop is hypocrisy writ large.