A crude joke - the head of the Remuneration Tribunal as co-chair to review politicians travel entitlements

Comments on Michelle Grattan "Bronwyn Bishop finally resigns as speaker", 2/08/2015

It is disappointing to have the head of the Remuneration Tribunal John Conde included in the review panel as the co-head, along side with former head of the Finance department David Tune.

The Remuneration Tribunal has long lost its creditability due to its granting of extremely generous salary increases to Australian politicians in the past when the government in both main political persuasion did not allow the increase in the wages and salaries of APS employees to allow for inflation, and ask them to demonstrate productivity improvement.

As a result, to have the head of that tribunal to review the extraordinary costs of politicians's entitlements, about half of billion dollars as reported recently is a bit of joke, given the tribunal's role in the proliferations of politicians remunerations.

It is a crude joke to have the head of the Remuneration Tribunal as the co-chair to conduct such a review. The Remuneration Tribunal and the politicians seem to have extraordinarily conflict of interests.

Perhaps there should be a review of the Remuneration Tribunal actions in the past in the context of the wages and salaries of APS employees.

I have no knowledge how members of that tribunal are appointed, but they seemed to act out of steps with the Australian community in general.