Transparency plan plus a watchdog: Greens

Minor parties and crossbenchers are in favour of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's plan for greater transparency in MPs' entitlements but are calling for it to be in the broader context of a federal anti-corruption watchdog.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said on Saturday changes were necessary "to build a bit more trust back into our institutions".

"Let's have this parliamentary authority established," he told the ABC.

But it was critical, Mr Di Natale said, that the body sit within a national anti-corruption watchdog.

"The idea that that federal parliament is immune to corruption, I believe, is ludicrous," he said.

Senator Nick Xenophon said independent pressure on MPs to cover their own expenses rather than rely on the taxpayer would be effective.

"There's nothing like pinching a pollie's hip pocket nerve to make them change their ways," he told Nine Network.

Mr Turnbull's plan is to create an independent agency to regulate and adjudicate MPs' expenses, and to require them to report expenses every month rather than just twice a year.

The new proposal follows Sussan Ley's resignation from the cabinet's health portfolio on Friday after a week-long furore over revelations of taxpayer-funded trips to buy property and attend New Year's Eve functions.

Mr Turnbull announced Ms Ley's resignation from the front bench after receiving the findings of an investigation into her travel claims from the secretary of his department.

He refused to reveal the findings, telling reporters in Sydney her decision to resign was the "right judgment".

Ms Ley has maintained throughout the controversy that she followed the rules, though she said she accepted "community annoyance, even anger".

Community reaction in Ms Ley's NSW electorate of Farrer has been strong, with Albury's daily paper, the Border Mail, publishing an editorial on Saturday saying she was wrong to call the scandal "a distraction".

"As a leading minister in a governing party that continues to tell the rest of us that the age of entitlement is over, this was an attitude that did her no favours," the paper said.

Who will replace Ms Ley in the health portfolio remains to be seen but Mr Turnbull said cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos would act as health minister until further announcements next week.