{"id":245,"date":"2013-01-11T11:07:11","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T11:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/australiansforhonestpolitics.wordpress.com\/?p=245"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:24:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:24:25","slug":"what-is-the-minchin-protocol-that-was-denied-to-mr-peter-slipper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/what-is-the-minchin-protocol-that-was-denied-to-mr-peter-slipper\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the “Minchin Protocol” that was denied to Mr Peter Slipper?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"812072-nick-minchin\"

Nick Minchin<\/p><\/div>\n

Matty Horan explained on Twitter:<\/p>\n

@margokingston1<\/a> It’s called the Minchin protocol because he came up with it after repaying thousands in wrongly claimed travel exes in 1996.<\/em><\/strong>
\n \u2014 Matt Horan (@mattyhoran) January 10, 2013<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

@margokingston1<\/a> p2 Daily Tele 15 March 97. Minchin repaid $3150 for travel allowance wrongly claimed during 96 election. Avail on newstext.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Matt Horan (@mattyhoran) January 11, 2013<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Former\u00a0Senator Nick Minchin was forced to repay $3,150<\/strong> in travel allowances after admitting he breached a parliamentary convention during the election campaign in 1996.<\/p>\n

The convention says that ministers and shadow ministers are not allowed to claim travel allowance after their party leader’s policy speech until the election.<\/p>\n

Here are the press stories at the time:<\/span><\/p>\n

Minchin kept in cheque –\u00a0The Daily Telegraph<\/strong><\/p>\n

SAT 15 March 1997, Page 9 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

THE Prime Minister’s Parliamentary secretary Nick Minchin wrote a cheque for $3150 yesterday to refund money he wrongly claimed during the last election.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

His gesture follows revelations in The Daily Telegraph yesterday that he had broken a “convention” restricting expenses claimed by shadow ministers.<\/em><\/strong>
\nThe Department of Administrative Services had written to shadow ministers and Mr Howard reminding them no expenses could be claimed after the party leader’s policy speech.<\/em><\/strong>
\nBut Senator Minchin claimed for every night from John Howard’s speech on February 18 to the night after the March 2 vote.<\/em><\/strong>
\nSenator Minchin said he had thought he was entitled to claim for his role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition.
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

also<\/p>\n

\"\"

Source: Newstext<\/p><\/div>\n

and<\/p>\n

\"\"

Source: Newstext<\/p><\/div>\n

All people make mistakes whether deliberate or not. The then new “Minchin Protocol” allowed MPs who\u00a0claim too much for minor expenses (such as cab\u00a0fares) can repay the excess and all is forgiven.<\/p>\n

Parliamentary secretary Bob Woods<\/strong> retired from politics when he was under police investigation for travel rorts.
\nSenator Ian Macdonald<\/strong>\u00a0offered to repay an almost $1500 travel allowance after being caught in breach of a Parliamentary convention.
\nThree ministers – John Sharp<\/strong>, David Jull<\/strong> and Peter McGauran<\/strong> – were forced to resign as a result of travel rorts involving false claims, mismanagement or cover-ups. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There are more cases of course, but none of them had been referred to the Australian Federal Police.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Nick Minchin<\/p><\/div>\n

From the\u00a0Protocol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Internal Audit<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

\u2022 When an allegation of or other event which suggests misuse of entitlement occurs, the Department undertakes an internal investigation to ascertain whether the allegations are credible (rather than being only malicious or vexatious).<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2022 If the matter is relatively minor, the Member or Senator will be invited to provide an explanation to the Department.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The questions remain: Why\u00a0did<\/i>\u00a0they make such an exception in Slipper\u2019s case? Why is there a double standard?<\/p>\n

Read more at Independent Australia<\/span><\/p>\n

EXCLUSIVE: How Finance defied protocol to crucify Slipper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matty Horan explained on Twitter: @margokingston1 It’s called the Minchin protocol because he came up with it after repaying thousands in wrongly claimed travel exes in 1996. \u2014 Matt Horan (@mattyhoran) January 10, 2013 and @margokingston1 p2 Daily Tele 15 March 97. Minchin repaid $3150 for travel allowance wrongly claimed during 96 election. Avail on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,3402,59,26,46,822,52],"tags":[96,113,269,325,345,367,466],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-3X","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}