Plump pollie pensions

7 October 2015

| By Rollover |

Recent events in Canberra served to remind Rollover that there are the “haves” and the “have nots” even amongst politicians.

The reminder came when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bronwyn Bishop, resigned her position in the face of suggestions that she had been travelling somewhat more luxuriously than might be acceptable including that now-infamous helicopter flight twixt Melbourne and Geelong for a Liberal Party fund-raiser.

Rollover notes that there have been suggestions that Ms Bishop might choose not to recontest her blue ribbon seat of McKellar on Sydney’s northern beaches and, instead, retire from the Parliament – something that would give rise to her receiving her Parliamentary pension.

Now, so far as Rollover can tell, Ms Bishop has been serving the Parliament in both the Senate and the House of Representatives since 1994 – something which would entitle her to access to the old and more lucrative parliamentary pension regime.

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Those with long enough memories will recall the manner in which former Federal Opposition leader and friend to all taxi drivers, Mark Latham, nigh on a decade ago persuaded the then Prime Minister, John Howard, to make parliamentary pensions a little less lucrative.

Longevity, it seems, can be its own reward.

AUTHOR

The Rollover

Rollover is a jaded hack who joined the staff of Super Review nearly two decades’ ago and never managed to summon the energy to leave. Known throughout the superannuation industry as a power-luncher and gossip, Rollover spends his time humouring fund managers, eavesdropping at conferences, dozing through briefings and looking for his next free meal.

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