House of Assembly Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2) 54 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Members Members Members, Accommodation Allowances, Speaker's Statement Members, Accommodation Allowances, Speaker's Statement The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER (14:12): Before I move to questions without notice, I refer members to the papers I have just tabled comprising House of Assembly country members' accommodation allowance claim forms for the period 1 March 2010 to 30 June 2020. For those who choose to peruse the claim forms, note that there are a number of recently resubmitted claim forms. I can inform the house that I have included the resubmitted forms together with the original claim forms into the compilation of all claim forms received in the interests of transparency. I would like to remind members of my ruling made in the house on 30 June wherein I indicated that questions asked of members regarding claims for country members' accommodation allowance are out of order. I went on to quote Speaker Such from page 3909 of Hansard of 9 November 2005 to the effect: I remind members to have a look at standing order 96, which precludes members from asking a question of a member unless they hold a position such as minister, chair of a committee, or something like that. Public business is not the same as public interest. I will be holding the line on this rule should questions be asked on country members' accommodation allowance claims. As I have also advised the house, I have written to the Auditor-General to ask him to consider commissioning an audit of the country members' accommodation allowance, and I have also asked him to also consider suggesting ways to make the claiming and the reporting of allowances more transparent; and, of course, I am not precluding any member from making any substantive motion in the usual way. The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS House of Assembly The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Sir, may I ask for a point of clarification? The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: You may. The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS House of Assembly The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: In the documents you tabled, did they include expenditure claimed by the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition over the last 10 years? The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: As to the matter of the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I am aware, for members' benefit, that the member for West Torrens has asked me whether I would consider publishing similar allowances for the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition also for 10 years. I have to be honest, the staff here have been working tirelessly for probably a couple of weeks now to furnish these documents and obviously make the necessary redactions for the reasons provided, so I am open to consider them. At this stage, it has been physically impossible to produce that level of information, but I am certainly open to providing it at a future date, and perhaps I will come back to the house when I have an update on that.