That’s the view of member for Riverina Michael McCormack in light of the expenses furore that has engulfed Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, which is continuing to cast a shadow over the government.

“Perhaps (a handbook) might be a good way to make it fairly clear to MPs, if they flout the laws, you will be censured by the public and you could well lose your position in parliament,” he said.

However, if someone makes a genuine, honest mistake, they shouldn’t be “hung, drawn and quartered”, Mr McCormack said.

“I’ve never claimed something I shouldn’t have,” he said.

“But everybody makes mistakes – you could make a clerical error or a judgement call.”

Mr McCormack said he believed Mrs Bishop had learned a lesson from her expenses scandal, but wouldn’t say if he believed she should be forced to resign over the episode.

“That’s a matter for the speaker,” he said.

“It’s not for me to decide whether the speaker should go or not.”

At state level, the regulations surrounding expenses are much tighter, according to member for Wagga Daryl Maguire.

State MPs face having their expenses regularly audited by the Auditor-General, as well as being subjected to a full independent audit of their expenses conducted at random once every four years.

“Once every term, my staff are required to sit down with an external audit organisation and explain how they’ve made those claims, where the receipts are and what I was doing on that day,” Mr Maguire said.

Should an expenses claim be rejected by the Auditor-General, the MP is required to repay it out of their own pocket.

Mr Maguire said the state parliament expenses system was extremely tightly monitored.

“You have to fill out copious forms to claim anything – the forms are there because people have used things in the past inappropriately,” he said.

“(The process) is onerous – just last week I spent almost a day filling out forms for the year’s end to make sure we got it right.”

However, Mr Maguire acknowledges there is still a grey area surrounding expense. “I don’t think you can legislate to totally have no grey areas at all,” he said.