Why do politicians only pay it back when they get caught?
@nevillesdaughter wrote:
But, as per my previous analogy - if you're caught leaving someone else's house via the window, clutching all their valuables, you are still marched off to the pokey to do some paperwork...
Cheers,
Marina.
I am not insane, and I have the psychiatric reports to prove it....
I can understand how some oversight & mistakes occur. What politicians and other extremely busy people who can claim expenses do is they save all their receipts, automatically. In the end of the month (or how often they hand their claims in) they pull it all up and try to sort it out. I have lived with man like that. LOL - forever asking: "Do you remember what we did/where we were X date last month? Why do I have here this bill for $X?"
So it is very easy to claim for 1 night in Canberra when that day, several weeks ago, he was elsewhere. He probably had his air ticket to Canberra, and drove down to snow.
However claiming for trips to flog his book (as TA did) is very unlikely to be a mistake. And if it was just one off, OK I would give him the benefit of doubt. However TA has claimed more than just about anybody before, his claims (if you take away JG's o/s travel, which was part of her duty as PM) were much more than JG as PM. Even if legitimate, it certainly is extravagant.
