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Labour has revealed it quietly "reined in" the travel spending of two MPs who were running up large bills on the taxpayer.
The disclosure came as a new cross-party committee met for the first time to inquire into greater transparency around MPs' expenses.
Prime Minister John Key asked for the
committee after two MPs disclosed their expenses to the Herald on Sunday last week, putting pressure on other MPs to do the same.
The disclosures - the result of an investigation by this newspaper - caused the floodgates to open. The 19 MPs of the Green, Act and Maori parties promised similar disclosure, forcing the Prime Minister's U-turn.
In Britain, a similar "conspiracy of silence" dramatically disintegrated with the leaking of MPs' expenses rorts, costing the Westminster Speaker and at least a dozen other MPs their jobs.
In New Zealand, Key and Parliament's Speaker, Lockwood Smith, have insisted MPs' spending is more tightly regulated than in Britain.
But when the Herald on Sunday asked MPs to account for their travel, accommodation and the $1.8 million they are paid for parliamentary expenses such as entertainment and gifts, not one was willing to do so. Then, last week, Green MP Russel Norman and Act's John Boscawen - both campaigning for election in Mt Albert - broke ranks and agreed to open their books.
MPs are not required to keep any record of how they spend the annual $14,800 top-up on their salaries. Public money also funds their taxis, rental cars, driving their own cars, domestic air travel and up to 90 per cent of the cost of overseas holidays.
As well, MPs from outside Wellington can claim up to $24,000 on the costs of hotels, rental accommodation or a mortgage in the capital.
None of this is disclosed. Despite a recommendation in 1999, the system is exempt from the Official Information Act, at the insistence of MPs.
After the new committee met on Thursday afternoon, Lockwood Smith promised to develop "a regime for public disclosure" of MPs' expenses as quickly as possible.
Labour has come under particular fire for the number of MPs it has flown to Auckland, their flights paid for by the taxpayer, to join the byelection campaign trail.
The party has been adamant that MPs' individual expenses - including travel - should remain secret.
But the party's senior whip, Darren Hughes, did disclose that the travel spending of two of its MPs had been "reined in" by the Labour's Parliamentary leadership last term.
Hughes said the containment of the two MPs' travel expenses proved how effective the internal controls were in the existing expenses regime.
He acknowledged that because the two MPs' burgeoning bills were dealt with internally, voters had not been able to judge the extent of the problems at the election.
As it was, the two MPs left Parliament at the election anyway.
Responding to the suggestion that voters should be able to judge whether the expense spending was excessive or not, Hughes said: "I accept that point - there's a logic in that."
But he insisted that the existing system allowed excessive expenditure to be controlled without the constant scrutiny of every receipt and every monthly account.
"Warnings were given. No one had done anything outside the rules, but we nipped them in the bud before they turned into major problems".
