Swan slashes MP’s printing entitlements

With
150 MPs currently in Parliament this represents a cut of $7.5m in printing
allowance, or $30m over four years. In
addition the 72 members of the Senate have had their allowance cut by a sixth
to $16,667, representing another $240,000 a year that won't be coming into the
printing industry.

Swan
will also stop the practice of MPs being allowed to roll over unused portions
of their annual allowance into election year. Under Howard rules up to 45 per cent — or up
to $67,500 of the annual printing allowance — can be rolled over from one year
to the next, including into an election year

The
budget move, part of the Rudd razor gang strategy, reverses the generous
increases in allowances that were instigated by the Howard government, which were
widely believed to be mainly about helping existing MPs – who at the time were
manly from the Coalition parties – hang
onto their seats through a mailbox blitzkrieg at election time.

Printing
entitlements for MPs were in the news last year for all the wrong reasons, with
police investigating allegations that a trio of south east Queensland Liberal
MPs were paying inflated prices to a local printer for their work, with the
printer then coincidentally making generous
donations back to the local party.

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