Let’s join some dots. Public respect for politics and politicians is not high at the present time. The frustration voters feel with their elected representatives plays out in a number of ways. The issue of politicians’ entitlements provides a focal point for some of the current disengagement – a logical intersection where various grievances can coalesce and simmer. It’s a symbol of something – politics and politicians prioritising their interests at our expense, metaphorically and practically.

Jonathan Swan from Fairfax has done some really diligent reporting on politicians’ expenses in fruitful collaboration with readers over the past few weeks, turning up some interesting instances of MPs riding right along the boundary of where personal business meets official business. Tony Abbott seems to be creeping, reluctantly, to a point of having to take some action, or at least provide a plausible appearance of action.

This debate generally follows a well-worn trajectory. A string of “scandals”. Government moves to shut down said scandals with an inquiry or a tightening of the guidelines. Inevitably over the course of this cycle, the talkback outrage focuses on the dollars and cents – politicians trousering sums to galavant around the place to events “ordinary” people would define as social outings – weddings, parties, anything.

But this narrowcasting ignores the elephant in the room. The point of looking at entitlement claims – apart from the worthy journalistic practice of unearthing specific instances of deliberate fraud – is actually bigger than the dollars attached to any given event. That’s inevitably peanuts when you consider how much money flows in and out of government coffers on any given day.

The point is expenses claims are a means of mapping daily business; the close read is a method of shining a light on contemporary political culture.

Take the case of agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce trotting off to the NRL and billing the taxpayer for the privilege. Doubtless the story will set today’s outrage cycle – more than $4,000 claimed for swilling boutique beer in a corporate box.

But it’s important to listen amid the tut-tutting and head shaking to Joyce’s rationale for his attendance. The then shadow minister – a significant player in a Coalition odds-on to claim the government benches at the next federal election – was an official guest of Westpac bank and the Australian Rugby League Commission. “Mr Joyce was invited to these events due to his position as a shadow minister. Such gatherings are viewed as opportunities for business and community leaders to meet and discuss policy issues with members of parliament,” said a spokeswoman.

This explanation is not weasel words. It is 100% true.

Joyce is not in the corporate box because of his winning personality, or his talent for stand-up comedy. He possess very specific currency, and it’s defined by his status. His desirability as a guest at the NRL relates to the influence he wields. This is work. It is absolutely connected to his job. No one wants an accountant from St George thieving oxygen in a corporate box, but they do want the opportunity to chew the ear of a future deputy prime minister.

This is the way politics is played. A more urgent debate in my view than whether an MP bills the public for an event voters might conclude is not, in fact work, is unpicking the culture of influence that sits behind many of these transactions. Who is meeting whom, and why are they meeting them? How do social chit-chats translate to relationships, which in time, influence outcomes?

Given the relentless rise of rent-seeking in Australian politics, and the increasing vulnerability of governments who actually want to embark on reforms with the potential to create losers (particularly any cashed-up losers) – the more pressing debate is not so much tinkering with the expenses guidelines, but the desirability of injecting maximum transparency in the system.

Rather than being irate about sponsoring politicians’ social lives, let’s see some productive community outrage about the potentially deadening impact that undisclosed influence is having on policy making. Let’s have a conversation about what’s actually happening, and whether it’s in the national interest.

We have a lobbyists’ register that imposes some transparency, but not nearly enough. The requirement on decision-makers to disclose specific interactions with players, corporate and otherwise, with specific policy interests, is bare-bones minimal, to say the least. All disclosures in Australian politics lag the actual event, and most of the significant conversations that occur are never disclosed at all.

Australian politics has carried forward a baseline assumption: our politics are honest, the practitioners are well motivated, the national interest wins out more often than not. The disciplines associated with the major party system provide an inbuilt protection against Australia sliding down the American path, where special interests carve up the congress and render the country almost ungovernable.

But these assumptions are worthless without periodic stress testing. Without much debate or pre-warning, the whole transaction in Australia has stepped up a notch. Take just one very small example. Australian politics has been suddenly and perhaps fundamentally transformed by a billionaire barnstorming his way into the parliament rather than being content to have a quiet word to Barnaby Joyce or whomever in a corporate box.

Rather than let these trends just wash over us without comment, let’s join some of those dots. Please, let’s have a word about that.