Malcolm Turnbull will use the opening of the new parliamentary year to overhaul the parliamentary entitlements scheme after a summer of expenses scandals that claimed the job of the health minister, Sussan Ley.
Intensive work has been done on the package in the past few weeks, and Turnbull indicated on Friday he would push ahead with an overhaul of the system next week.
He told 2UE radio on Friday, he wants to start publishing MPs expenses monthly – rather than every six months, as is the case now – and to establish an independent authority to monitor the expenses system.
“We have to have a change of culture ... the more regularly information is produced the more accountable people are, I think the more attention they’ll pay to how they’re spending taxpayers’ money,” he said.
“We’ll get a new [IT] system that will enable them to be reported on monthly, and there’ll be complete transparency and accountability.”
Earlier this week the government telegraphed its intention to pursue its planned company tax changes in the opening session, and a revised childcare package, which will see a new bill introduced to parliament containing both the changes, and the savings measures required to pay for them.
The government’s long-delayed plan to overhaul media regulations will also hit the parliament early in the new session, with the Senate blocs of the Nick Xenophon Team and One Nation the critical players in that package.
The government wants to dump the media regulations known as the 75% reach rule and the two-out-of-three rule. The reach rule now prevents Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media and the Ten Network from owning their regional affiliates. The two-out-of-three rule restricts cross-media ownership, preventing moguls from controlling a free-to-air TV station, newspapers and radio stations in the same market.
Fairfax Media, News Corporation and the television networks have been lobbying intensively over the summer to try to persuade the two crossbench blocs to support the package – but both groups have signalled their reservations.
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, met Xenophon on Friday to discuss the government’s parliamentary agenda. Xenophon told Guardian Australia he expected many more meetings over coming weeks. “We need to make sure the key principles of fairness are built into [their policies], but we also understand the government’s concerned about its debt rating,” he said.
Turnbull’s desire to bring in a change of culture comes after Sussan Ley was forced to step aside in January from her role as health minister when she admitted taking a taxpayer-funded trip to the Gold Coast during which she bought a $795,000 investment property in 2015.
Attention then focused on politicians who had been charging taxpayers to attend events including New Year’s Eve parties and major sporting events. The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, came under the spotlight for charging taxpayers to attend a polo event on the Mornington Peninsula, and two government ministers and a Coalition senator for attending the 2013 AFL grand final.
Turnbull used a speech on Wednesday at the National Press Club to call for greater transparency of political donations. But he was promptly criticised for refusing to disclose, during the question and answer session, how much he donated to the Liberal party during the 2016 election campaign.
“My donations to the Liberal Party have been regular and generous ... and they’ve always been disclosed in accordance with the law,” he said.
The backlash led to him revealing on the ABC’s 7.30 program that evening that he donated $1.75m to his party during the election campaign.
The Coalition has been criticised for acting slowly on expenses reform.
A review of the expenses system was published in February last year after former speaker Bronwyn Bishop used a taxpayer-funded helicopter to travel to a party fundraiser, costing $5,227.
The review, led by Remuneration Tribunal president John Conde and former finance secretary David Tune, made 36 recommendations for reform but the Coalition had implemented only three of those recommendations by December last year.
Next week the education minister Simon Birmingham will introduce his childcare package to parliament. He plans to streamline multiple childcare subsidies into a single, means-tested payment, with low-income families to receive the highest amounts. He also wants to remove the annual $7,500 cap on the amount of childcare rebate families can receive.
To pay for the changes, he plans to make cuts to family tax benefits. He will bring forward a bill next week combining the childcare measures with the savings required to fund them. “We want to see wholesale change and reform,” he said on Friday.
“My urging is for the Australian Senate, particularly the Labor party, to make sure that they support the savings that are necessary for the delivery of our childcare reforms.”
Turnbull said this week negotiations over the childcare package were going well, but Xenophon said they were going more slowly than the PM suggested.
He also said the government’s controversial $48bn company tax cut plan would need to be split in two when introduced to the Senate, because he was “yet to be convinced” about the need for tax cuts for big business, although he supported cuts for small businesses.
