Members

Members, Accommodation Allowances, Speaker's Statement

The SPEAKER (10:31): Before I call on Mr Clerk, I have a statement to make in relation to country members' accommodation allowances. I made some comments yesterday in the house in relation to this matter. I can also advise members that late yesterday I wrote to the Auditor-General to ask him to consider commissioning an audit of the country members' accommodation allowance paid to members of the House of Assembly, and I have asked him to also consider suggesting ways to make the claiming and the reporting of this allowance more transparent. I also table copies of the House of Assembly country members' accommodation allowance information, which I referred to in my statement in the house yesterday, for the full financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20 up to 29 June 2020.

Further to my statement to the house yesterday, in relation to this commentary around the release of more detailed information, going back to 2010, let me say to the house I intend to publish this information, but what I am going to have to do—and I will need some indulgence of the house—is I will come back to the house with a reasonable time frame for the publishing of this information back to 2010 to occur, because, as members can appreciate, there is some time required to reasonably assemble that information. I will come back to the house once I have a better idea of the exact time frame that that information will be readily available. I appreciate members' indulgence with that.