abbott rejects calls for reform of mp expenses, page-17

I agree some kind of reform is required but I'm not sure how it could be done.

I am sure Politicians of all persuasions get invited to a wide variety of events they'd either prefer not to at all, or would prefer to be doing something else. For example, "A" is a senior politician and gets invited to the wedding of a foreign diplomat's daughter in S-E Asia. Is that work related? Clearly. What if the diplomat is also a personal friend of A? Does that change it to a personal matter?

Take Abbott on the Pollie Pedal or at a Triathlon. As Opposition leader he has a job to engage with the community. Given the amount of press coverage he always gets at these things, clearly he gets coverage because of who he is - doesn't that mean he is doing his job?

The gray areas are very gray - there's no black and white. This applies equally to politicians of all sides. Do Australians REALLY want politicians who turn down invitations to numerous events because they won't dip into their own pockets? Do we want pollies who sees the country from behind their desk? If any of us were a pollie and had to dip into our own pocket to do these kinds of events - well, we simply wouldn't.

Is that REALLY what people want? I doubt it.

--------------------------------
"After all he did run on a policy to reduce govt waste did he not?"

Yes, but let's not fail to see the forest for the trees. We're talking $20 Billion of current deficit and almost $300 Billion of debt racked up since 2007 in wasteful expenditure.

I challenge anyone to formulate hard and fast expenditure rules which will save money and not stop politicians from doing their jobs properly. Again, I re-iterate this applies to both sides. I wouldn't be a politician for any money. Most are on call 24/7 [except the lazy ones] so I'm happy to cut them some slack.