Steve Martin is a name that doesn't necessarily come to mind as a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, but he was Labor's pick for the job during the latter Keating prime ministerial years from 1993 to 1996.

He never copped the sort of publicity, nor probation, that Bronwyn Bishop is now receiving, but he remains among a number of high political office holders who have caused dyspepsia among colleagues for travel and other arrangements.

In August 1994 Martin delivered a strongly-worded edict, in writing, to all fellow MPs, instructing them to leave their children at home when they travelled overseas on parliamentary delegations. Host countries had made it clear children weren't welcome on official delegations and children had caused "an unreasonably increased workload" for Australian posts in foreign countries, he wrote.

Seven months later Martin took his wife and three children, aged 8, 11 and 15, on a parliamentary delegation to Egypt and Israel, with stop-overs in Paris - where the Australian Embassy laid on transport to Euro Disney World - and Rome, where the children went along with Mr Speaker for an audience with the Pope.

The Speaker's children had a splendid time in the Middle East, too, to the great annoyance of some of the other MPs on the delegation. The Martin kids were given their own Mercedes in an official convoy in Egypt, and rode in a limo in Israel while a Liberal MP and his wife travelled down the back in a baggage van.

Martin later protested there was nothing wrong with any of it. He'd paid for the flights of two of his children, and used frequent flyer points he'd totted up as an MP for the other. His wife's travel was part of his entitlement.

Martin followed another member of Labor's NSW Right, Leo McLeay, as Speaker.

McLeay had resigned amid a scandal generated after he fell off a collapsible bicycle he had borrowed, despite advice he was too heavy for it, from the Parliament House gym. He busted his arm and suffered a facial injury.

McLeay sued the Joint House Department, of which he was jointly in charge, and was awarded $65,000. Part of the pay-out - $10,000 - was compensation because the injury would mean the Speaker would be unable to resume work as a technician with Telecom, a job he had quit 17 years previously.

A subsequent parliamentary inquiry cleared McLeay of using his position to gain favoured treatment from his department.

Long-time Queensland Labor MP Mal Colston, lured in 1996 from the ALP by prime minister John Howard, who supported his elevation to deputy president of the Senate, was later revealed to have spent much of his career rorting the system in spectacular manner.

Colston loved short and long expensive flights. He was in the habit of taking a Commonwealth car from his home in Brisbane to the airport in the morning and hopping on a plane to the Gold Coast, mere minutes away, where he maintained an office. He'd reverse the journey in the evening.

Once, having exhausted his entitlements and running short of frequent flyer points to take a family member on an overseas trip, Colston hatched a plan to fix the problem.

He flew business class from Canberra to Perth, where he sat in the airport's VIP lounge doing nothing except feeding his substantial appetite for free food until the return flight a few hours later. Perth was as far from Canberra as he could fly domestically at taxpayer expense. It gave him just enough frequent flyer points to ensure he could be accompanied on his upcoming overseas jaunt.

Neither of these efforts got Colston into trouble at the time, though he was eventually charged with 28 counts of fraud relating to his travel entitlements. Prosecution was dropped when he revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer and it was thought he wouldn't live long enough for a trial to go ahead. He lived for another six years.

Much has been written about Peter Slipper's short and unfortunate period as the Gillard government's pick for Speaker.

But well before he reached the Speaker's chair, even as a humble Liberal backbencher, Slipper's enthusiastic use of entitlements remains notable.

In just the last six months of 2009, for instance, Slipper's upkeep, including maintenance of his electorate office, cost the taxpayer $640,562. He spent $14,764 on phone calls alone during that period - more than the PM at the time, Kevin Rudd - and he spent $16,000 on cabs and $8600 on private-plate cars. All in six months.

The following year he attracted notice for spending $30,000 on family travel and questions were raised about a 43-day overseas tour, which he explained was on parliamentary business. He was forced to repay $14,000 in 2010 for wrongful use of entitlements, including family travel, which seemed careless - he had been forced years before, in 2003 - to repay $7785.67 for the same sort of behaviour.

Following various allegations that eventually drove him from the Speaker's chair, Slipper was convicted by a Magistrate last year of defrauding the Commonwealth over the alleged use of Cabcharge vouchers involving just $954 during a wineries tour in 2010. The conviction and sentence were ordered to be put aside and a verdict of not guilty be entered when the ACT Supreme Court upheld an appeal by Slipper early this year.

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