Politicians of all stripes have rejected calls from former senator Derryn Hinch to end a "rort" allowing MPs and senators to claims unused allowances as income.
Mr Hinch wants the system allowing unspent electoral allowances to be pocketed instead of being used to travel and meet constituents to be changed.
Mr Hinch, who says he paid for community initiatives with his allowance, described current arrangements as a "rort".
"I was amazed when I first came to Canberra and was told the electoral allowance was an allowance," he told The Daily Telegraph on Monday.
Parliamentarians get an electoral allowance of between $32,000 and $46,000 on top of their base salary of $207,100.
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said while the prime minister was on a "good wicket", there needed to be good money on offer to attract the best people to politics.
"You go through a myriad of expenses," he told Seven's Sunrise.
"It's very well for Derryn Hinch to say this - I never heard him say it when he was actually a politician by the way."
Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon said the money helped MPs pay for functions, which were part of the job.
"You must pay them enough to attract good people to the career and you need to ensure that the cost involved is covered," he said.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said she used her allowance to help pay for travel or donated it to community organisations.
"I see the feasibility of having this allowance, but I'm accountable to the people," she told Nine's Today program.
Senator Hanson accused Mr Hinch, who had a liver transplant in 2011, of collecting the allowance despite voting against a bill to suspend pay rises for MPs until the federal budget was in surplus.
"This is a man who actually was on his death bed to get a liver and actually abused that as well by continuing to drink," she said.
"But do I have any time for Derryn Hinch? No, I don't."
