Over at Groupthink, Spock notes that the Herald-Sun seems to be producing outrage from conjecture. And the Daily Telegraph appears to be at it as well (my emphasis added):
Deposed Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd’s $600,000 a year pension
Mr Rudd – at 52, a young ex-prime minister – could receive about $20 million worth of allowances if he lives to 85. This is despite the fact he served just 2 1/2 years as PM … If he retires at the upcoming election he will receive a pension of $118,346 a year for life. The payout will be much higher if Labor win the next election and Mr Rudd returns to the Cabinet … If Mr Rudd takes 30 flights annually it will cost the taxpayer about $60,000 a year … Once retired, he is entitled to his own office – worth about $120,000 a year in Brisbane – for the rest of his life, and four staff, which political insiders say will cost $240,000 a year … Mr Rudd would also be entitled to the lease of a car worth up to $55,000 for the rest of his life. Leasing experts say this would be worth $1000 to 1500 a month.
And Mr Rudd will receive all of these benefits on top of his wife’s estimated $56 million fortune.
So, we should be outraged at what Julia Gillard might have cost taxpayers and at what Kevin Rudd might, over the rest of his life, cost us. Perhaps we should insist that the major parties choose their oldest members as leaders? FYI: Hello, Prime Minister Bob Debus (66)! Hello, Opposition Leader Wilson Tuckey (74)!
But it’s interesting that these stories are running right now. And it’s hard not to wonder whether there’s a connection with the fact that last week saw the Department of Finance and Deregulation release the reports on parliamentarians’ entitlements for the second half of 2009.
These reports disclose how much MPs have spent on office facilities, travel, and other expenses. Last week, The Australian noted some of the big spenders in the current government:
RIGHT-WING Labor powerbroker Bill Shorten spent more on office facilities than any other MP in the second six months of last year.
He cost taxpayers $445,000 on top of his salary, travel costs and car expenses.
…
The costs paled in comparison to the overseas travel bill clocked up by the former prime minister, dubbed “Kevin 747″.
Taxpayers spent $776,000 on overseas trips by Kevin Rudd between July and December last year, including to the Copenhagen climate summit and to Washington to meet US President Barack Obama.
New Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan spent $218,000 on overseas travel, while Trade Minister Simon Crean spent $352,000 and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith $345,000.
And that’s fair enough – they’re dealing with actual expenses rather than reporting on hypotheticals. What’s more, The Australian was kind enough to include reporting that gives a bit of context to the Tele‘s swipe at Rudd’s potential costs (note that staff salaries aren’t included in these reported expenses):
Reports tabled in parliament yesterday also revealed John Howard as Australia’s most expensive former prime minister.
Taxpayers spent $282,000 on office facilities, car costs and airfares for Mr Howard, more than double the costs for any other former leader. Former Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser was next, costing taxpayers $139,000, on top of his pension.
Former Labor prime ministers cost taxpayers far less, with Paul Keating spending $95,000, Bob Hawke $86,000 and Gough Whitlam $72,000.
What frustrates me about the approach of the Tele‘s report is that it seems designed as some kind of inflammatory Rorschach test. Those who don’t like Rudd can complain that he doesn’t deserve it for such a short and/or failed period of service — as Milton von Smith has done, albeit while he treats the hypothetical estimates as established expenses. Those who don’t like politicians in general can complain that none of them deserve it and it should be going to the people who do “real” work for the community. Those who don’t like this kind of story can complain about it being a beat-up and how we wish the papers would stop running such trash. And we can repeat it all over again when the next leader departs.
There’s plenty that can be questioned and argued about the lifetime entitlements given to our politicians. Should there be a difference based on length of service? What boundaries should be placed on expenses? Are the traditional entitlements consistent with the tendency to have younger politicians living longer lives? But to consider all of these arguments in any sensible way means that instead of throwing out a few ill-informed numbers, we need a good analysis of the entitlements, their rationale and how they are being used, instead of a few shaky numbers thrown together into a story. But that probably wouldn’t get people quite so worked up, which often seems to be the purpose of the story.
15 Comments
You are imagining The Daily Telegraph in an alternative universe?
Ok, then. I’ll repost my question from the other thread:
This business about JGILL taking the
presidentialprime ministerial jet to queensland for a fundraiser …What’s the deal there? Is the PM even allowed to catch a commercial flight? Now that there is an official plane, does the PM ever travel anywhere domestically on a commercial plane? Just curious – I actually don’t know. What are the rules? I can’t have imagined JHOW flying commercial for any reason, fundraising or otherwise.
But this is Abbott’s fault, he openly admitted he hounded Rudd out of the PMship so maybe the Tele should be demanding that Abbott and the Liberals pay Rudd’s pension and entitlements, by the way the exact same entitlements they can claim if in an identical position.
“Perhaps we should insist that the major parties choose their oldest members as leaders? ”
lol classic.
Imagine, for a while, what sort of society we might have if the mass media were other than they are. If tabloid, and broadsheet newspapers were not so totally biased to the Right,if they did not expend so much effort pushing their ideological barrows, but instead actually offered real debates and alternative points of view. If ‘correspondents’ in China or Zimbabwe or Venezuela or the Middle East did not serve up a diet 100% against the designated ‘enemies’ in China, Russia, Iran,Venezuela etc.If hatemongering against Islam,Moslems,the Palestinians, Iran and now Turkey was not universal,and craven and mendacious apologias for Israel not omnipresent. If ‘opinion’ leaders were not universally Rightwing and on absolutely crucial questions, such as the survivalof our species in the face of ecological crisis, they were not uniformly denialists, mendacious and cynically hypocritical to the nth degree. Imagine if they were not the most arrogant and bare-faced liars, able to call Chavez, who has won numerous fair elections and plebiscites, and whose Government holds not a single political prisoner, a ‘dictator’, while expressing unbounded admiration for the death-squad state, Colombia, where, every year for decades, hundreds of unionists,environmentalists and political activists are savagely murdered or ‘disappeared’ by allies of the Rightwing regime so beloved of Washington. Imagine if talk-back radio was about discussion and information sharing, not rabid ranting and insults. Imagine if the media did not see the deflection of social concern at our society’s injustice and inequality, by means of cultivating diversions like downward class envy, xenophobic hatred of refugees and Islamophobia, as central to the continued dominance of the predatory class, who, after all, own this vile propaganda and brainwashing system entirely, and expect that it puts protecting their dominance above all else. Imagine what a society we might have, then.
The tele aint worth the crap paper it’s printed on…morons only.
I wonder how Shorten managed to spend so much. Don’t like him one bit anymore.
It’s interesting though that Shane Stone thinks the dumping of Rudd was disgusting.
As Kevin Rudd did more in 2 and a 1/2 years than John Howard did in 12 I think he deserves every penny of his lifetime parliamentary pension.
Meanwhile, that bastion of reasoned comment, the Herald-Sun, complains about Julia Gillard’s security measures and points out that The Lodge and Kirribili House stand idle at the cost of $12,000 p.a. to taxpayers. One or other of these residences has stood idle for the last 15 years: Rudd lived in The Lodge, and Howard at Kirribili. Perhaps, as PM Gillard and her partner are “in tally” as the Welsh term a de-facto relationship, then Liberal propriety should dictate that she and her partner live apart until they legitimise their relationship, she at The Lodge, and he at Kirribili, or vice versa.
I’m sure the Herald-Sun would approve of this without negative comment.
mw @9
Way back in the 90′s, not long after howard was elected, I was talking to a chap about howard’s refusal to relocate to canberra permanently. Fair enough, there is an official residence in sydney and all, but I gather he actually wanted to stay in his own home, and not relocate anywhere. Apparently somebody worked out what would have to be done to bring his house up to the necessary level of security, communications, access etc … and he decided to move into kirribili.
It’s possible that joolz is just going to wear it. Maybe whack up a couple of granny flats for the security guys to move in to. Install some cameras here and there. Telstra can pop around and sort out the secure lines, and I’m sure the neighbors will be happy about the extra police presence, keeping the kids in line and all. But every now and then they’ll have to just put up with the traffic being stopped for a couple of blocks while a row of white cars arrives or departs – and they probably won’t be observing the 40km/hr limit. No biggie. But it will cost money, because they have to do that at the lodge as well, whether she’s there or not.
Anyhow – has kevin moved out? I imagine he’s keen to go. Once the job’s gone, it’d feel a bit weird to be hanging around all the time, knowing that the new PM might have to pop in from time to time if something comes up.
The press seems to assume that people are completely daft when it comes to these things. The lodge is a house, sure, and quite a nice one (but not as nice as some in yarralumla) but it’s also a working building with proper physical security, direct access to parliament, office space, communications etc. Just freakin’ move in and get on with the job, I reckon. Ditch the symbolism – it just makes other people’s jobs harder.
Yeah, Kev moved out the other day. He’s going on holiday with the family apparently, but yesterday was visiting a nursing home in his electorate.
At least Rudd has worked for his money. Apart from Godwin Gretch and the work involved with bogus senate hearings, the coalition has done no work for three years. Not even a proper costed budget reply.
I daresay that when they’re not braying at question time they must have their private businesses to run. So they are a bit like the unemployed living it up on $210/week in the way they accept a lot of public money but do no work. Multiply the cost for each of these arseholes and that’s a lot of money.
Perhaps we should send them to work in the mines.
Matthew@10
A simple answer: Altona Pier!! Julia could hop onto a Navy jetboat and be at the Port Melbourne helipad in 20 minutes!
mulga mumblebrain @5 = John Lennon?
To extend this, most would admit that life is rarely fair. Imagine if it was, and everyone got EXACTLY what they deserved.
monkeywrench @13
Hmm. No rocket-powered submarine?