Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has defended taking his family with him on a work trip to Perth, costing the taxpayer about $8,000 in airfares.

Mr Hockey's report to the Finance Department revealed he claimed family return airfares from Sydney to Perth during school holidays in April 2013.

The total cost of the trip was more than $14,000.

Mr Hockey's office defended the trip, saying he had work meetings every day and was accompanied by his chief of staff as well as his family.

A spokeswoman listed meetings Mr Hockey held with the Western Australian Premier and Treasurer, the editor of the West Australian newspaper, his Liberal colleagues Senator Michaelia Cash and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, resource and energy companies and senior public servants.

"WA was critical in the 2013 election campaign, given the prominence of removing the carbon and mining taxes," the spokeswoman said.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott pointed to the review he called to look at bringing parliamentary travel entitlements into line with community expectations.

"Obviously there are things that have been inside the rules but outside community expectations," he said on Channel Nine.

"The sorts of things that would be inappropriate in business should likewise be not something that members of Parliament do."

Greens Leader Richard Di Natale said his party wanted to see a new integrity commissioner assess parliamentarians' travel claims.

"I think it's one thing to say the kids are going to come to Canberra for a few days so they can see mum or dad, it's another thing altogether to have these holidays in exotic locations where you might tack on a day's trip at the end of it, and I think quite rightly people are really angry about that," he said.

Other MPs' travel claims under the microscope

Mr Hockey is the latest federal MP to have travel claims questioned.

It was revealed that Education Minister Christopher Pyne spent more than $5,000 of taxpayers' money flying himself and three family members to Sydney in 2009.

Department of Finance documents showed on Christmas Day in 2009, Mr Pyne and three family members flew from his home city of Adelaide to Sydney.

Each airfare cost $1,200 and the family returned on New Year's Day.

During the period Mr Pyne also spent nearly $1,000 on Commonwealth cars and claimed two nights of travel allowance.

The documents indicated Mr Pyne claimed the travel allowance because he had official shadow ministerial business.

Earlier this week, Labor frontbencher Tony Burke was accused of "hypocrisy" when attacking outgoing parliamentary speaker Bronwyn Bishop over her expense claims.

Mr Burke's own history of claims included charging taxpayers for going to a Robbie Williams concert and flying his family to Uluru in 2012 for $12,000.

Mr Burke said while the entitlements claims were within the rules, they were "beyond community expectations".

Last week, Mrs Bishop resigned as Speaker following ongoing criticism over her travel expenses.

It was revealed she spent more than $5,000 taking a chartered helicopter from Melbourne to Geelong to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser last November.

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