DAVID PENBERTHY

SPEAKING ahead of his first Federal Budget, former Treasurer Joe Hockey famously declared that the age of entitlement was over. Three years on, it is clear that not everyone got the memo.

We aren’t talking here about your low-level dole bludgers who cadge dough off the hardworking while doing everything they can themselves to avoid hard work.

Nor are we talking about the self-funded retirees who slaved away their whole lives to own an investment property, and who suddenly found themselves in the frame for some brutal scrutiny from the Australian Taxation Office.

We’re talking about aboveaverage income earners – one of them so above-average that he needs his own pay scale – who think the public owes them an unchallenged and luxurious living.

There were two classic examples this week of how the concepts of defensible entitlements and just rewards have been bent out of shape through what looks very much like the purest form of greed.

Both cases will cement the perception that the big end of town and the political class not only have no idea how poorer people live but are happy for poorer people to underwrite their lavish existence. Not only are they happy to do so but they will go to lengths either through secrecy or court action to stop their gravy train from grinding to an overdue halt.

If not for the diligent work of Liberal Senator James Paterson, the people of Australia may have been none the wiser that the head of the government-owned Australia Post, Ahmed Fahour, wheelbarrowed home an astonishing $5.6 million in salary and bonuses last year. Australia Post had tried to argue there was “no public interest” in disclosing his salary, saying that as a “self-funded government business enterprise” Australia Post was somehow wholly distant from the taxpayer.

Senator Paterson dismissed that argument and managed to secure the release of full details of Mr Fahour’s package, stating, rightly, that Australia Post was governed by an act of Parliament and, essentially, had its existence underwritten by the Parliament, meaning the public did, indeed, have the right to know about its most lavishlypaid public servant.

You could reasonably suspect that the main reason Mr Fahour’s executive team was scrambling so hard to conceal his salary is that it fails the front bar test so spectacularly. This is because it is obscene. Whatever good he has done as CEO, only a person possessed of great self-importance could argue hand-on-heart that they are worth almost $110,000 a week – or almost three times the average annual salary.

I have no doubt Mr Fahour works extremely hard and also that, as a CEO, he knows he is only one bad quarter away from copping it in the neck in the brutal world of business.

This is where he differs with some of those old stagers in our Federal Parliament – or MPs long since gone – who have been mounting a rearguard action to save the disgraceful Gold Pass travel scheme.

Two ex-MPs – Labor’s Barry Cohen and the Liberals’ John Moore – have attempted through the High Court to maintain this ludicrous perk that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants to eliminate.

It’s easy to see why they’ve done so.

In the case of Mr Moore, the former Industry Minister spent $213,733 between 2001 and 2015 on travel – an average of more than $15,000 a year.

As The Australian revealed this week, the former Howard government small business minister, WA multimillionaire Geoff Prosser, was billing the taxpayer an average of $3000 every two months for travel from Perth to Broome where he owns a holiday home.

I’m married to a politician. Under this scheme, I could also fly at public expense, business class, a dozen times a year with my wife to the destination of our choice, no questions asked.

As pleasant as that sounds, I don’t see how you could board the flight and look other travellers in the eye, knowing they paid for your holiday, especially when you’re already earning above-average money as an MP.

Messrs Cohen and Moore might have failed in their High Court action but the cudgels have now been taken up by Liberal senator Ian Macdonald, who fired up this week on behalf of himself.

“It’s about time our leaders started just emphasising how much work politicians do, how much commitment most of the people who sit in this Parliament have,” he said.

What he said is true, I believe, of most MPs. But whatever nobility can be found in public service is undermined by the money-grubbing of the few with these indefensible perks, which do nothing other than guarantee a generalised sense of mistrust and contempt for everyone in politics.

Most politicians do work hard. But so do nurses, cops and labourers, and no one is giving them a free holiday.

Donald Trump will ultimately be exposed as a false and self-interested prophet, and already is, given his determination (among other things) to use his office of president to get his daughter’s fashion line back on Nordstrom’s racks.

But one good thing that has come from his rise is his determination to blow up the chubbiness and craven self-interest of the ruling class, be it on Wall Street or in Washington. Those who rule the roost in Canberra should take heed.

“Most politicians do work hard. But so do nurses, cops and labourers, and no-one is giving them a free holiday”