On Friday, Speaker of the House Lockwood Smith slammed the door on transparency, limiting disclosure of MP's international travel expenses. The decision was condemned by party leaders, and the public, and as a result he has been forced to back down and release all the information. He's petulantly blaming "confusion created by the decision of some party leaders to release individual party figures", but the blunt fact is that he was wrong, and we (and our representatives) called him on it.
Hopefully Smith has learned his lesson from this, and will embrace the cause of transparency. Otherwise he will continue to drag Parliament into disrepute and contribute to the poor reputation of our politicians.
