Senator MURRAY (3:40 PM) —At the request of the Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Bartlett, and pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

I have put this motion not to be smart but because it is something we feel strongly about. We felt that the recent changes to parliamentary superannuation agreed by the government, following a change of position by the opposition, made this an apposite opportunity for this matter to be addressed. For well over a decade, the Democrats, a few Independents and a number of members of the major parties have recognised the need for, and have indeed called for, parliamentarians' superannuation to more closely match community standards. The life gold pass is another anachronism whose time is up. All that my motion does is to ask the government to review it, although of course it does have a little bit of gratuitous politics in it as well.

The life gold pass is a taxpayer funded free air and rail travel perk for qualifying retired parliamentarians and their spouses costing, at the last time it was evaluated, up to $2 million a year. Apart from retired members of some private sector air or rail corporations and federal and some state politicians, retirement travel benefit schemes are non-existent in the Australian community. The Australian National Audit Office told a Senate inquiry that entitlements similar to the life gold pass retirement travel benefits had never been available to public servants either past or present. They confirmed that retirement benefits for bureaucrats were composed solely of superannuation. The Department of Finance and Administration told the committee that it understood that life gold pass entitlements were ahead of the field with regard to retirement benefits available for members of parliament internationally.

Some submitters to the Senate committee, including the Association of Former Members of Parliament, argued that retirement travel benefits are legitimate compensation for the lower rates of salary that sitting members receive while in office and for the difficulties and stresses associated with being a member of parliament. I do not agree that rates of salary are too low now and, if they were low in the past, the proposition we have put to the parliament and to the government is that this measure be prospective, not retrospective. Even if the argument about low pay were true for some ministerial posts, and many backbenchers are not paid badly for the work they do, instead of providing for compensation after their service, members of parliament should be paid an appropriate salary for the work they do while in office. Except for transitional arrangements on leaving office, retirement benefits should be confined to superannuation at levels in accordance with community standards.

Former parliamentarians who wish to continue to provide public service or to perform official duties, if part of the functions of government, should be funded as such and not slip through via a parliamentary perks regime. The argument that the continuation of these retirement travel benefits is necessary to fund pro bono community or charity work is self-serving. Why is it acceptable for a former parliamentarian or spouse to select his or her own worthy cause on unknown criteria to be funded at public cost? Either the organisations themselves must fund such travel or government must decide in the public interest to make grants to charities for such services.

One of the good principles followed by both this coalition government and the previous Labor government is that hidden subsidies should be transparent. There should be, in our view, one exception: former prime ministers do have justifiable official engagements post retirement, and continued travel entitlements for them are appropriate. Their expenses, however, should be funded as an executive cost and not as a parliamentarian's benefit.

There are, essentially, three categories of entitlements afforded to members and senators. These are their salary package, what they need to do their job and their retirement package. The first includes matters such as salary and fringe benefits, car and other benefits. The second includes electorate allowances, office expenses and staff allocations. The third includes superannuation and retirement and travel benefits, including entitlements available under the life gold pass. Great improvements have been made in accountability measures to better audit, control and manage what parliamentarians use and need to do their jobs. Now the long and justified public attack on excessively generous retirement benefits is at last bearing fruit, and we think that the life gold pass should be added to the redundancy list.