Imogen Brennan reported this story on Saturday, January 14, 2017 08:10:00

EMILY BOURKE: It's taken years and a string of MP expense scandals to spark the crackdown on parliamentary entitlements.



The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, says a new independent monitoring and auditing agency will be based on the system adopted by the United Kingdom in 2009 and will oversee work and travel expenses of all MPs.



Legislation to set up the new independent watchdog is expected in the coming months.



Imogen Brennan reports.



IMOGEN BRENNAN: The UK has had many of its own expenses scandals, involving MPs from all sides rorting allowances and entitlements.



In response to mass public outrage, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority was created in 2009. It oversees and regulates MPs' business costs and expenses.



Marcial Boo is the chief executive of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). He spoke exclusively to AM from London.



MARCIAL BOO: It was very challenging at the beginning, because obviously the atmosphere was fairly difficult. It was difficult for MPs. They were under a lot of scrutiny. And they passed legislation and Parliament passed legislation to create this independent body.



But of course, there were a number of MPs who didn't like the transparency that came with that and the rules that they needed to adhere to. So it was difficult.



Also, IPSA, when it started, obviously was starting from scratch.



IMOGEN BRENNAN: What investigative powers does IPSA have, if any?



MARCIAL BOO: Yes, we certainly do have investigative powers. We process about 15,000 claims every month. And so, since we were set up, there's about 1.1 million claims that we have processed.



Every three months we look back at each MP's claiming patterns to see if we can find anything unusual. It's normal kind of data analysis stuff. And then, every now and again, we also look at categories of expenditure: say, for example, we might look at travel.



IMOGEN BRENNAN: Is it the case, do you think, that the fact that these expenses are published and searchable on your website: do you think that point creates a deterrent in itself for MPs, or their staff, who might be considering misusing their allowances?



MARCIAL BOO: Yeah, without question. It's an enormously powerful regulatory tool that we have. Every two months we publish claims from four or five months previously. We did that yesterday, as it happens.



Now, it is a really, really powerful preventative tool, in the sense that MPs know that their claims are going to be published. It is also something of a double-edged sword in some ways, because there are some MPs who don't claim for legitimate costs because they know it's going to be published.



IMOGEN BRENNAN: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the exact details of the reform will be drawn up by the Special Minister of State, after consulting with MPs and senators from all sides.



Marcial Boo from the UK's Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has this advice:



MARCIAL BOO: I don't think that anybody can expect it to be easy. I think that the independence that we have is absolutely critical.



And I would say that the two things that have most helped us to make this work are our independence, so that we can pursue what we think is right in terms of the taxpayers' interests, but also we all recognise the needs of MPs themselves - trying to strike that balance on the one hand; and then the transparency, because we have to uphold our own integrity and the integrity of our processes, so that we can over time build back confidence of the electorate in our politicians.



EMILY BOURKE: That's the chief executive of the UK's Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, Marcial Boo, ending Imogen Brennan's report.