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In many democracies, there are strict controls on parliamentary entitlements and allowances for incumbents. In Australia, postage and printing allowances have increased dramatically in recent years, giving incumbents unfair advantage to use these funds for campaigning and election purposes. Other entitlements include an electorate allowance, office resources, unlimited home telephone use, unlimited fuel allowance, as well as spouse and world travel entitlements. Of especial significance is the new arrangement that permits sitting members to carry over unspent allowances and to use them for campaigning. According to Norm Kelly, these parliamentary entitlements “[tilt] election contests unfairly in favour of incumbent MPs at the expense of democratic equality” (Kelly, 2006). Joo-Cheong Tham and Sally Young argue that these entitlements need to be carefully scrutinised and brought under a single independent decision-making authority.
To date, the Rudd Government has not addressed these issues.
Kelly, N. (2006). “MPs Incumbency benefits keep growing”, http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/papers/20060830_kellympperks.pdf
Tham, J.C., & Young, S. (2006). “Political finance in Australia: A skewed and secret system”, http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/papers/focussed_audits/20061121_youngthamfin.pdf
