Audrey Young: Ex-MPs' travel spending

Sir Roger Douglas. File photo

"I'm entitled!"

Who can forget Sir Roger Douglas' sense of effrontery when confronted by cameras a few years ago about him using his MPs' travel perk to go and watch cricket in London.

And he was right. It was within the rules. But voters were also entitled to feel disgust at the perk, the more so because he was with the "perk-busting" Act Party.

Rules for sitting MPs have since changed and they can now only use taxpayer funded international travel for work-related travel which must be approved by the Speaker.

It is a perfectly sensible arrangement which can be easily defended.

Ministerial credit card details are now posted on line and the reference to blue movies and foie gras have dropped commensurately.

But detested travel perks for former MPs (elected before 1999) and their spouses have been protected from public gaze.

Ex-MPs defend it on the grounds it was always part of their salary package.

That is some package for the likes of the late Bert Walker who was part of Holyoake's cabinet, or Labour minster turned Act member Michael Bassett who left politics in 1990.

Inevitably, however, it is current MPs who have to wear the blame and have to defend the indefensible.

Cunning Attorney General Chris Finlayson and the Law Commission came up with a simple plan in 2012: you keep the perk you insist is an entitlement but we will disclose exactly who is spending what. The new rules kicked in today.

The inevitable criticism will be painful for some ex MPs or their widows who will feel as though their service to the country is being attacked.

It is not. Their public expenditure is now being subject to the same level of disclosure as other public expenditure.

It is the bare basics.

If those taking the travel perks are not comfortable with the disclosure, they should not be comfortable with the spending.

That's the whole idea.