And as they criss-cross the globe, there is usually an upgrade provided by Australia's single largest giver of gifts to politicians, Qantas.

A database painstakingly put together by a team of Fairfax journalists and University of Technology Sydney students has now revealed the gift-givers, the free trips and the upgrades. For the first time, the searchable database provides an easily readable financial profile of all 226 federal politicians, including their homes, savings accounts, shareholdings and grab-bags of gifts and trips.

The sifting of two years' of disclosures reveals some remarkable facts - not just politicians' liking for upgrades (almost 300), overseas trips (more than 100) and free tickets to sporting and cultural events (more than 450). The database also suggests substantial avoidance or straight out breaches of disclosure requirements, with more than 70 politicians failing to disclose subscription gifts from Foxtel and Austar.

An ANU academic who has written extensively on accountability, Professor Richard Mulgan, says such transparency is vital. ''There is a very strong court of public opinion when it comes to parliamentarians,'' he says. ''This is where transparency seems to me to be key. Politicians do live in a glass house and it's harder for them to get away with things.''

But the current regime of disclosures presents many hurdles to accountability - not least because the forms are scratched in handwriting on unsearchable pages that must be examined individually. Some entries, including ones by Victorian MPs Greg Hunt and Bruce Billson, were virtually illegible.

In the words of John Uhr, a professor of politics at the Australian National University, the current system of disclosures ''has still got a kind of 'club rule' about it, where the information is registered with the club official for club purposes''.

The database reveals some grade-A schmoozing going on. Those glad-handing Communications Minister Stephen Conroy at high-profile sports events include Channel Seven (the Australian Open), Channel Nine (Test cricket), Channel 10 (formula one) and SBS (FIFA World Cup). Senator Conroy also declared 10 tickets to AFL football matches in the past two years, including eight tickets to grand finals.

In fact, AFL grand finals resemble a Who's Who of federal politics, with more than a dozen politicians attending each of the last two grand finals, enjoying tickets that are often accompanied by nosebleed prices of more than $2000.

Through the mandatory disclosures, one learns federal minister Bill Shorten took a fully funded trip to Rome financed by an Italian political party, Partitodemocratico. And former Tasmanian senator Nick Sherry, a one-time superannuation minister, was flown to London in April by financial services company Baker Tilly.

Considering a return business class trip to Europe costs in the order of $8500 - before any accommodation - such trips are not small change.

The patterns show the heavy influence from certain regions and companies. Israel and Taiwan - both facing challenges - are the biggest national supporters of trips by Australia's politicians, recording 44 and 16 partly or fully funded trips respectively.

For the largest number of trips sponsored by an individual company, look no further than the seven sponsored by the Hancock interests owned by Gina Rinehart, followed by controversial Chinese telecommunications company Huawei (six) and gas giant Santos (six).

One freebie was a 2010 chartered flight for Resources Minister Martin Ferguson to look at Hancock Coal's operations in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

Another freebie involved Hancock sponsoring three politicians - Julie Bishop, Teresa Gambaro and Barnaby Joyce - to travel to Hyderabad in India and attend the marriage of the granddaughter of the head of Indian industrial conglomerate GVK Group.

Australia's parliamentarians are not surrounded by the level of checks and balances that have emerged to govern behaviour of parliamentarians in other Western democracies throughout the world. These include codes of conduct, parliamentary standards commissioners, ethics commissioners and independent oversight of the way politicians spend their expenses.

Professor Uhr believes destructive debates surrounding the behaviour of controversial members Craig Thomson and Speaker Peter Slipper are able to flourish when there is no rulebook about what is acceptable for politicians.

''The pitfalls or dangers are that it becomes, at the worst, a grossly political bunfight when public debate emerges about appropriate standards,'' he says.

For example, most politicians who accept gifts and lavish trips don't have to meet standards expected of federal public servants, whose behaviour must comply with a code of conduct.

Ministers are an honourable exception, with their behaviour needing to meet a ministerial code of conduct. But even this code of conduct is policed opaquely by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The requirements for politicians to reveal duchessing and the like are based on a laundry list of necessary disclosures set down in 1984 for members of the House of Representatives and 1994 for members of the Senate, and hardly changed since.

The lists are often opaque, poorly framed and inconsistent between the two houses. For instance, politicians have to reveal trusts they benefit from, but members in the House of Representatives do not have to disclose the trust's shareholdings. Senators on the other hand must.

Just what constitutes a gift and what constitutes hospitality is barely defined, an important omission as gifts can require ministers to pay the difference out of their own pocket if they exceed a certain cost.

If a gift is offered to all politicians, such as access to an airline lounge or free pay TV, no declaration is required at all for senators. There is no such rule in the House of Representatives.

When it comes to spouses, there is no requirement to declare any of their interests if the politicians say they are unaware of what they own. The last point results in the remarkable disclosure from federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese that the income of his wife, NSW Labor frontbencher Carmel Tebbutt, is ''not applicable''.

A similar stance is taken by other MPs including Paul Fletcher (his wife is well-known Sydney jeweller Manuela Zappacosta) and Joe Hockey (his wife is prominent investment banker Melissa Babbage).

Failure to disclose gifts appropriately can give rise to a ''serious contempt'' of Parliament, which is no small matter. But experts interviewed by The Saturday Age were unaware of these sanctions ever being enforced.

Confidence in the level of transparency - and the ability to hold politicians to account - is hardly bolstered by glaring omissions, opaque or illegible reporting. For example, Gary Humphries and Nola Marino, two members of a six-member all-expenses-paid trip to Frankfurt paid by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, gave no disclosure of the trip whatsoever. The trip - with a conservative value of $8500 for each politician - was billed by another participant, Joel Fitzgibbon, as supporting the ''framework of NATO's widening co-operation with Partners Across the Globe''.

Humphries was unavailable to answer The Saturday Age's questions. Marino said her non-disclosure was an oversight and she had ''written to the Clerk responsible for the Register to correct this''.

Similarly when reporting 289 flight upgrades, in more than 50 cases politicians omitted the name of the sponsor.

In another scenario, Cory Bernardi, Michaelia Cash and Stephen Parry are staying quiet on why they felt the need to take a charter flight provided by Hancock Prospecting between Adelaide and Canberra. The trip was not one of the regular company-funded charters provided to show politicians major resource projects being developed by various major resource companies.

The fact that a billionaire mining magnate is able to provide an in-fill charter service (provided by Execujet) for a routine route for certain politicians interests Professor Uhr.

''If this was a regular use every time the three wanted to go to Canberra, it's worth knowing,'' he says.

''If it's exceptional use, that's worth knowing too.''

Then there is over-disclosure being pursued to the point of silliness.

Mark Butler, the member for Port Adelaide, has made his disclosures something of a vanity publishing exercise, recording every last meeting and every last throwaway gift. This, despite the fact that a politician need only declare gifts above a threshold of $300 for private gifts, $750 for gifts from official sources. A small sample includes a cupcake (''The value of the cupcake is approximately $5''), a $5 pie and a gift of a roll of toilet paper worth $3.

The same punctiliousness is displayed by Craig Emerson as Trade Minister, who adds his own ''toilet paper'' disclosure to a dizzying list of moon cakes, tea sets, vases and desk diaries from his travels.

But even such trifles offer surprising revelations. Among Emerson's disclosures are a tea set and lacquered box from Bo Xilai, described as Chongqing party secretary, and a vase from Wang Lijun, described as Chongqing vice mayor.

The gifts dating from 2011 show Emerson playing a bit part on his visit to Chongqing in the lead-up to a drama that has transfixed China. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai was charged and later found guilty of the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, in a case launched after Wang took refuge in a US consulate.

Professor Uhr supports the idea of such disclosures being made far and wide. ''If it's public disclosure then the widest distribution of information to the public is a good thing,'' he says.

With Lawrence Bull and Frances Mao