The news report I saw last night said that Australian law was that MPs couldn't hold any shares at all. I thought that that sounded like possibly a good idea, but with our slack trust laws it wouldn't have any impact here - they could just hide everything in undeclared trusts. It didn't mention rentals. If politicians were forced to just put their funds into bank term deposits there would still be room for conflict of interest whenever monetary policy was on the table, and everyone would be equally affected which could cause even bigger problems.
The big thing that we are seeing with all these issues coming out now is that these people are not understanding what conflict of interest is and when/how to deal with it. We all have conflicts of interest in our lives but people in certain positions need to understand when to declare it and the rules need to cover how to deal with it in specific circumstances. The main answer is education - of everyone voted in to any position of governance.
[Edited to remove duplicate post]
The big thing that we are seeing with all these issues coming out now is that these people are not understanding what conflict of interest is and when/how to deal with it. We all have conflicts of interest in our lives but people in certain positions need to understand when to declare it and the rules need to cover how to deal with it in specific circumstances. The main answer is education - of everyone voted in to any position of governance.
[Edited to remove duplicate post]