More on perks

No wonder they need so many parliamentary holiday breaks!

Context;

I haven't been overseas for 8 years, and that was a trip across the ditch. Don't even have a current passport and neither do my children. I wear-out clothes and shoes. Last week I changed my car because it was 14 years-old, had done over 200,000 km and failed its warrant ...seriously. We traded it for a 7 year-old car (which I am in love with). Yesterday I got a tax refund of $143 which is a third of the donations I made to charity last year. I was really chuffed. That's a tidy sum of money to me. When I use my car for volunteer work I don't claim mileage.

My home is large by necessity (we both work from home and painting takes up a lot of space) and comfortable but we haven't turned on the underfloor heating in years because its too expensive. We have takeaways on Friday but eating out is a treat. My husband has inherited land but I have always made it clear to him that is his - not mine. Both of our children go to state schools. One has singing lessons and the other has piano lessons. Like me, they also wear-out their clothes and shoes.

What I am trying to convey here is a modest lifestyle (bar consumption of wine).

So reading about MPs perks, which for some reason I hitherto had not given much thought to, leaves me feeling rather underwhelmed. I am not sure which is more deflating. Discovering a perfectly able beneficiary is getting $715 a week or that we are paying for 90 percent of MPs overseas holidays.

Look, consumerism and consumption make the world go around but to the politicians, for pity's sake, use the money you earn. You are hardly underpaid.