Guy Beres

Being a member of parliament is doubtless far from an easy job. In addition to all the public opprobrium regarding politicians and the dirty world of politics more generally, today’s twenty-four hour news cycle ensures that the average politician works far more than fourty hours per week. The need for almost perpetual preparation and briefing on public policy issues and of course the media issues of the day induces many of our representatives to put in hours day and night, no matter what day of the week it might be. Consequently, it’s easy to conceive how someone with a full-time job in politics could become quite estranged indeed from their partner and immediate family. In Australia, I imagine it must be particularly tough for those serving parliamentarians who live more than an hour’s flight away from Canberra.

One imagines that UK Tory MP Derek Conway had seeing his family in mind when he originally decided to hire his wife and two of his sons to work in his parliamentary office. In the last week, unfortunately, things have now turned a bit pear-shaped. A House of Commons committee found that one of his sons, Henry, was paid some £32,000 for “research work”, and that his other son Freddie was paid £45,000 while he was studying full-time at Newcastle University. In a turn of events that Prime Minister Gordon Brown must be thanking the gods for, Mr. Conway has hence been suspended from parliament, forced to repay £13,000, and now plans to leave politics at the next general election.Since the discovery, which has blotted out headlines in London over the last few days, Tory leader David Cameron has made a somewhat nervous discovery:

David Cameron yesterday disclosed that his party whips had discovered more than 70 of the 193 Conservative MPs employ members of their family.

In the wake of the Derek Conway scandal, the Conservative leader said he would be requiring his front bench from April 1 to disclose in the register of MPs’ interests if they were employing family members.

Now it’s not really surprising that a fairly large proportion of MPs in the UK (or in Australia, one would think) employ a family member or two. To a fairly strong extent, particularly for those in high profile positions, a life in politics forces one’s partner and family to come along for the ride or to be isolated altogether. However, it does make sense that some formal controls are put in place to ensure that MPs do not abuse their privileges. Cameron’s move is an intelligent one, although one would have to think that legislating some safeguards in this area would probably be a good thing for the Brown Labour Government to do.Of course, for the time being, I am sure all three major parties in the UK are desperately checking with all their parliamentarians to verify that nothing suspect is going on, before they come out in a truly aggressive way for increased transparency.

Does anybody know what the rules state in this area in Australian federal politics? If I had to guess, it would be that Australian federal parliamentarians need not publicly register who is working for them at any given time. Sounds like one for Special Minister of State John Faulkner to investigate further, in the light of this scandal in the UK. You would have to think there are one or two parliamentarians around the traps across the country who are abusing the privileges of their offices.

ELSEWHERE: The Daily Mail, from the Murdoch stable, has been particularly scathing about the affair.