Centre for Public Integrity

The 15 reforms promoted by the Centre of Public Integrity cover much of the elements that I have been discovering over the last two months. Their 15 point plan for the Commonwealth level includes

1. Caps on electoral expenditure
2. Caps on political donations
3. Transparency of political donations and electoral expenditure
4. Increased public funding of political parties and candidates
5. Regular reporting of gifts and interests
6. Cap on government advertising
7. Restrictions on Parliamentary entitlements
8. Alignment of state and federal political finance laws
9. Transparency of lobbying activities
10. Codes of conduct strengthen and enforced
11. Close the revolving door
12. Ban cash for access
13. Fair consultation process
14. Statement of reasons
15. Effective compliance and enforcement

No 11. Closing the revolving door seeks to address the conflict between current future priorities for elected officials by:

• Post-separation employment restrictions extended to include lobbying-related activities
• Post-separation employment restrictions to apply for 5 years for Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries.
• Enforcement through a Parliamentary Integrity Commissioner

I have some questions about equality of opportunity (i.e. what is the compensation for being so restricted from earning living) so do we increase the parliamentary pension to make up for this?

Otherwise the rest are compelling.