And taking Mirabella at her word, this confession is something else, admitting to a galling example of a political offence rather than a criminal one, the gangrenous pork barrelling which infects Australian politics, which in this case presumably hurt only the sick people of her former electorate. Beyond Indi, the gangrene floods marginal electorates with taxpayers' money, diverting spending on public services according to the political interests of political parties. That Mirabella felt so comfortable saying what she did on national television indicates how routine it is. Yet the preference for spending based on electoral marginality rather than demonstrated need is utterly improper. It's something legitimately to be considered outrageous, even if it's so everyday that Mirabella's confession has already started to fade away. It remains a big deal. Her clear words show an accepted attitude to public money which is fundamentally wrong, no matter how common it might be. It is one influenced by the private interests in the electoral success of a candidate, and one that is dispiritingly widespread. This is not just a problem for the former member for Indi, who will hopefully remain dumped from national politics given both her attitude to our money and her other flights of personal fancy, like making sex offenders' registers public so Australia can Google its way to vigilante justice.

Most Australians, who don't live in marginal electorates, cop the consequences when the projects they need get shoved down the list by those desired by the minority of voters who do. Those in this minority are who decide the government. Only this month, the Grattan Institute demonstrated how transport funding is swayed by the marginal seats. Its analysis of budget papers found too much money was spent on the wrong projects in the wrong places. "Governments have spent up big in electorates where federal elections are won and lost, funding roads that are not very important to the economy, but are popular with local voters," it said. "In some cases return on investment has been staggeringly low: project evaluation showed one highway upgrade yielded a return of eight cents for each dollar spent." That eight-cents-for-a-dollar loser was for part of the Princes Highway in the marginal Victorian electorate of Corangamite. Almost half a billion dollars was spent on a stretch between Geelong to Colac, a town of 12,000 people, with little traffic to justify such a grand road to somewhere tiny. Unless, that is, governments think it legitimate to take into account the perilous position of the local member, who was Labor's Darren Cheeseman under the Rudd-Gillard governments, and is now the Liberal, Sarah Henderson. Corangamite has a margin of 3.9 per cent, a "key" seat in this year's election.

There is a way to reduce the temptation of key seats: remove them, remove the importance of marginal seats entirely. Rather than having 150 mini-elections across the country, which discounts the importance of most electors who live in safe seats, there is a way to return power to all voters. Allocating seats by the share of the total vote won, proportional representation, would remove much of this marginal seat malfeasance, and inject a shot of fairness into the electoral system. There are types of PR which still allow for local MPs and independents; New Zealand, for instance, has both. Its form of PR tightly reflects the share of votes a party gets, by filling their share first with the winners of local races then, if required, allocating seats from a party ticket. If Labor wins 48 per cent of the vote, it gets 48 per cent of the seats. The votes in one constituency are as important as any other. It's the national vote which determines the government. The usual argument against PR for the lower house is the difficulty in one party winning a majority and that would lead to instability. Yet since 2000, Australia has had six governments, and New Zealand just two.

Tim Dick is a Sydney lawyer. Twitter: dick_tim