It’s a strange and indulgent place where you can charter flights around the country no matter the cost, and there are no worries about how you can possibly afford to attend your friend’s wedding because it won’t be you that foots the bill. 

But those examples aren’t even the weirdest things that go down on Pollie Planet. That surely must be the incapacity on their behalf to understand what is and isn’t acceptable to the jokers footing the bill – the taxpayers.

What is plainly obvious to the average person is beyond comprehension to some pollies.

Our prime minister is a Rhodes Scholar but among his peers, he is hardly alone in the great struggle to understand what is fair and reasonable to the average person.

As Bronwyn Bishop succumbed on Sunday after weeks of pressure and revelations about her high-flying ways, Mr Abbott opined after her resignation as Speaker that the issue was not about any particular individual but more “the system” generally.

He has called for a review by the former secretary of the Department of Finance, David Tune, and Remuneration Tribunal chairman John Conde to create a system that is "simple, effective and clear".

Mr Abbott said “we have a situation” where spending is arguably inside the rules but plainly outside of community expectations. Clearly, we can’t expect the worst offending politicians to have any understanding of what those expectations from the community might be.

How Mrs Bishop’s situation differs from that of former speaker Peter Slipper is just one more mystery to most of us.

Mr Slipper was pursued through the courts and eventually convicted of fraud before having the conviction overturned in the Supreme Court. Though he tried to have it dealt with internally, as Mrs Bishop has been allowed to do, the option was denied.

It’s just another example that in Pollie world, what would seem to be common sense is actually sometimes very far from it.

But the community can probably agree on one thing: any review of politicians’ entitlements should include the same advice the treasurer gave the rest of us not so long ago: the age of entitlement is over.