By Max Lane
In Canberra in a one and a half billion dollar building sit 196 men and 27 women who are supposed to be representatives of the Australian people. Each one of these "representatives" sits in a suite of rooms, comprising a large office with lounge suite, a room for staff to work, a reception office, a bathroom with shower, and a small kitchenette. Down the carpeted corridors — red in the Senate, green in the House of Representatives, and grey in the Ministerial wing — is the swish Members Dining Room and Bar where the Member can put another nice meal or drink on the steadily increasing tab.
Back in their electorates, faxes, computers, and more staff are there to assist the Member in his or her representational activities.
The atmosphere inside the building is very much that of a club. Quiet and cosy nooks inhabited by deep, comfortable lounge chairs can be found on most of the floors closed to the public. The over-worked staff in the big kitchens in the bowels of the building bring wine, canapes and sandwiches whenever the Member needs to entertain a distinguished member of the business community or other impressive lobby group.
It's true not everything is quite up to scratch — the coffee served in committee rooms flows from a plastic urn, but there is at least one waiter there to serve it up to the Member and guests.
When stressed out from too many meetings or having to listen to each others' speeches, there is always the indoor pool and spa, the tennis courts or squash courts.
Of course, the Parliament only sits for a few months a year so the Members' Dining Room and Room Service do not extend back to the electorates or other cities a member might feel the need to visit.
Salaries and allowances
In this regard, however, a Member can be reasonably assured that he or she will not necessarily have to suffer any major drop in quality of service. Such a Member can rely upon their salary and allowances. A back-bench member of parliament receives a base salary of $68,663 per annum. In addition, for spending some of their time working on a parliamentary committee, this figure will increase to anything between $70,000 to $83,000, but mostly in the mid-seventies range. Meanwhile, of course, all air travel is free and first class and a Commonwealth car always available — assuming, naturally, that the Member is travelling on official business. And if the Member is travelling away from home, he/she has to survive on only $190 per night, or $230 per night if in
If this $74,000 per annum or just over $1,500 per week seems a lot to you, it is, of course, not really all that much compared to a Member who is not a backbencher. If you are the leader of a non-government party of at least five members, total salary is $96,190; leader of the National Party $99,037; leader of the Opposition in the Senate, $106,13 — and if you are John Hewson, you are on a paltry $125,596. A cabinet minister earns $116,986, the treasurer $127,103; the deputy prime minister (what does he do?) $140,366 and Prime Minister Keating, $179,175 — not including a rent equivalent for the Lodge or Kirribilli House. Moreover, any of these high earners have to make do on only $300 per night when travelling.
Then in addition to all this, back in the electorate, a Member will receive between $23,819 and $34,540 per year or a car plus between $17,819 and $28,540 per year electorate allowance.
Furthermore, superannuation is available immediately on early retirement along with a life-long Gold Pass allowing free air travel.
One member of the House of Representatives, Ted Mack, has called for limits to placed upon some expenses, such as telephone and postage usage, and on the Gold Pass for life. He has also called for reorganisation of the allowance system so as to make the real income of MPs more transparent to the public.
Exclusive club
However, the real danger in these incomes that Members receive is not so much in their impact on the budget outlays, but the way they help to separate and isolate members of Parliament from the general community. Of course, the whole political system already operates in an undemocratic fashion. Only parties with big money backing can get into the media or get their message out to the population at large. That alone already limits people's real choice at election time.
Once in Parliament, the elected Members are then initiated into an exclusive and very comfortable club. And all the privileges of membership of this club serve one main purpose — to bring the club membership closer to the wealthy minority that controls the real power in this society, i.e., the owners of the big corporations.
How much is somebody who is able to spend $100,000 or more per year, with easy access to first-class air travel and all the comfortable facilities of a $1.5 billion building capable of really identifying with the needs and aspirations of people on $15,000, $20,000, or $30,000 per year and who actually feel the expense of the increased cost of travelling on a bus or suburban train? How far apart are the worlds of people with unlimited telephone expenses and those who have to face the constant barrage of a Telecom or Optus computer print out bill? How many people have a swimming pool, spa, tennis court and squash building located for them in their very place of work?
In fact, the whole of the operation of parliament, beginning with the huge size or population of electorates that a single Member is supposed to serve through to the pomp and extravagance of the chambers where the House of Representatives and the Senate meet, is aimed at keeping "representatives" and the allegedly represented separated and apart.
For senior Members who last the distance for a few years, the separation from the community is even more drastic. If you have been receiving $100,000 plus for five or 10 years, then soon you have the capacity to make a few investments, perhaps in real estate. You might like to invest in a large-scale commercial piggery, such as the investment made by Prime Minister Keating. Through this mechanism, there is more and more reason for such well-endowed Members to feel that they have the same interests as other investors, other business people.
What's good for business is good for everybody, then becomes the natural way of thinking.
More money?
There are, however, those commentators, and Members and former Members, who argue that parliamentarians should be paid more. The best people, goes this argument, are being lost to the "private sector", i.e., to big business. These people often also argue that Members truly work hard and deserve their money, indeed even more money. Occasionally, we will see a profile of a parliamentarian in the popular media showing the harried life of a Member. Yes, it's true, the Member will have to occasionally work overtime, i.e., wait in his or her office until the Parliament finishes sitting at one or 2 a.m. in the morning, just in case there is a vote called and they are needed to provide the numbers. Yes, it's true, a Member will have to attend some meetings. However, what real work is actually done, such as the research or writing of the occasional report or speech, is mostly done by either the research staff of a parliamentary committee, who also write "possible questions" for Honourable Members to perhaps ask at committee hearings; or by research staff in one of the research Â鶹´«Ã½ of the Parliamentary Library or by their own personal research staff, supplied to them at taxpayer's expense.
And in any case, why should anyone be paid something special just for doing what is supposed to be an honest day's work? After all, don't they all claim they go into politics to "serve the community"?
The worst lie of all is that it is those people who can be attracted away from big business by big salaries who are best fitted to be "representatives of the people." Why continue to go through the farce of elections then; why not just advertise and contract a personnel management company to select the parliamentarians?
In the end the best people will come from among ordinary es. They are the people most likely to best informed and closest to the majority of ordinary working people. They work 40-hour weeks and more at the factory, shop or office. They spend hours in a bus, train or traffic getting to work each day. They organise their households without free travel, free telephones, Commonwealth cars, room service and subsidised dining facilities. And they do all this on $30,000 or less per year. Parliamentarians should not be paid any more than a skilled worker.
The $100,000 a year salary and allowances, and all the parliamentary facilities are simply a bribe to make sure that all the members of parliamentarian club keep quiet and go along voting on bloc, year after year, in support of policies that channel more of the country's wealth away from the majority into the hands of the already rich. If the Honorable Member was to defend the interests of the working majority, then they'd be accused of being "irresponsible", or worse, by the electronic and print mouthpieces of the rich, and would soon find themselves thrown out of the "club" and, God forbid, forced to live like the rest of us.