BILL Tilley has cited privacy for not providing material to an audit linked to an allowance rorted by Labor MPs Don Nardella and Telmo Languiller.
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The Liberal MLA for Benambra was deemed not to have offered up “relevant documentation” to auditors examining all Victorian MPs who claim the second-residence allowance.
Mr Tilley said he had co-operated fully with the audit but wanted to protect his family's privacy, so some documents, including bank statements and energy bills, were redacted.
"I have absolutely nothing to hide," Mr Tilley said.
"I will defend my family's right to privacy."
Mr Tilley lists a principal residence in Wodonga on the MPs' register of interests and rents a property on Spring Street close to Victoria’s Parliament House.
His failure to hand over relevant documentation left auditors "unable to conclude on whether the information exists to support the Member's Home Base nomination as Principal Place of Residence".
Mr Tilley, said he provided the audit committee with a record of the commercial flights he regularly takes between Wodonga and Melbourne.
The audit, by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, called for tough new laws giving the lower house speaker and upper house president powers to "enforce" the rules and "compel" members to refund overpayments.
It follows revelations Mr Languiller and Mr Nardella moved their main residences to the Bellarine Peninsula, away from Melbourne, and claimed thousands of dollars in entitlements designed for country MPs.
Mr Nardella has declined to repay the nearly $175,000 he has claimed, while Mr Languiller agreed to repay nearly $40,000.
Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings said Labor would consider the recommendations from the audit as it worked to reform entitlements and announcements would be made soon.
The auditors have previously found that Mr Nardella was living in a caravan in Ocean Grove owned by a family member to whom he paid just $200 a fortnight.
