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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-06-30 Daily Xml
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Members, Accommodation Allowances, Speaker's Statement

The SPEAKER (14:08): Before I move to questions without notice, I refer members to the joint media release put out yesterday by the President of the Legislative Council and by me that provided an individual breakdown of country members' accommodation allowance information.

Further to the concerns raised about transparency regarding the detailed members' allowance information administered by the parliament, the President of the Legislative Council and I have taken the unprecedented decision to release the individual breakdown of country members' accommodation allowance information for financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20. This obviously covers the full financial years, a period of time I have been Speaker of the House.

This level of detail is unprecedented and, as outlined in the media release, this should provide full transparency regarding the accountability of the parliament's administration of country members' accommodation allowances.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader, if you speak while I am speaking you will walk alone today outside for a while. Please let me finish.

While it has never been the practice of previous presiding officers of either house to release this level of information, we felt it now incumbent on the parliament to release this level of detail to provide full transparency and to remove any confusion. I would anticipate that this kind of reporting would also continue for subsequent financial years going forward and be perhaps be included in the annual reports of the respective houses.

I have also sought further information from the Clerk regarding the provision of detailed country members' accommodation allowance information to supplement this information, including having regard to what other jurisdictions around Australia are also doing. I did want to provide members with that update.

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