POLITICIANS who use taxpayer-earned frequent flyer points for private travel and shopping vouchers will be exposed under new accountability rules.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that the Rudd Government has agreed to publish the number of points that MPs earn on official travel, making it harder for freeloaders to rack up frequent flyers.

Points redeemed for work flights will also be reported, placing the spotlight on rorters.

MPs can rack up millions of rewards points over a career.

But few use them for work-related purposes, despite repeated directives.

Some use them for family holidays and weekends away and they can even be cashed in for department store gift cards.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner recently admitted that MPs were misusing their points.

``The taxpayer indirectly pays the cost, but the individual gets a benefit that is often not used for work purposes,'' Mr Tanner told the National Press Club.

Federal MPs spend more than $8 million flying across Australia each year and about $7 million on overseas trips. Special Minister of State John Faulkner has written to all MPs telling them of the new rules.

The Department of Finance will estimate how many points each MP accrues based on their air travel and rewards status level.

Senator Faulkner said redeeming points was difficult because MPs' accounts mixed business and personal travel.

He said the new system would ``assist senators and members to track their points accrued from travel at Commonwealth expense''.

The Government has tried to secure points-free tickets from the major airlines to cut its massive travel bill. But the carriers are reluctant to agree to such terms because reward points are generally redeemed on cheaper seats and many go unused.

Just 11 MPs out of 226 used their frequent flyer points for work-related travel in the latest available figures.

Victorian parliamentary secretary Bill Shorten set the gold standard, saving taxpayers more than $9000 in just six months.

Others to use their points were Labor's Senator Faulkner, Penny Wong, Bob McMullan, Steve Gibbons, Daryl Melham and Martin Ferguson, former Democrats senators Lyn Allison and Natasha Stott Despoja, and Liberals Bruce Bilson and Russell Trood. Together they saved about $21,000.

 

BEN PECKHAM