Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill

It is a pleasure to stand and to speak on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill debate notes and to follow on from—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Debate notes! Ha, ha!

I beg your pardon—with debate notes. It is a pleasure to follow on from such a well-prepared speech as was given by the Attorney-General and the perhaps more spontaneous speech given by Mr Mallard, who might have been a little assisted had he had some notes.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Debate notes.

He could have had debate notes, yes. It could have been useful. None the less, I do actually concur with the point that he made that the work done by the Government Administration Committee should not be taken lightly and, indeed, should not be diluted by subsequent decisions to bring forth amendments to make changes. There was ample opportunity at the committee level to get things into order.

Mr Mallard did say in his speech that he felt that the bill was betwixt and between, rather than a definite thing. Well, to my mind, I think this is a significant step in the Government’s commitment to having Ministers’ and MPs’ entitlements determined in a transparent, independent, non-partisan manner.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: More a tiptoe than a step.

Pardon me?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: More a tiptoe.

Well, yes, you know—a bit between where it needs to be. If we look at where it could be, there is a public perception, which was certainly voiced to members of the committee and came through fairly clearly. The public perception probably varies between thinking that we decide it all ourselves, for our own benefit—and perhaps that might be considered to have been the case in the past—but also there is another perception that thinks that all MP pay and conditions should be subordinated to a higher authority and not left to any discretion of anyone in this particular organisation. That is when we come to the point about Parliament being sovereign in the management of its own affairs and being the master of its own destiny. Really, if you think it through, that is a very significant part of New Zealand’s history and development.

This bill, drawn from the Law Commission report, called for reforms, and these were addressed by the select committee. The select committee, to me, is one of the best bits, I think, of the process that we have in this Parliament. It is a very significant process and a very important part. It interfaces with the public and also it is through having the select committee process that we can have a single House structure of Parliament, because we do have that recourse to consideration of views. We received the submissions. The committee concentrates on consulting and considering, fairly widely, from official reports and from expressed views that come to it. I think that was particularly the case with this bill. So it would be unreasonable for any potential critic to say that the bill was changed. Well, that is what the bill is actually considered for, so that there are not unforeseen circumstances, so that it will have the effect that it was designed to give, and so that it will not be a misfit with practice.

The Government Administration Committee, I must say, is a balanced committee. No one particular party has—

💬 Grant Robertson: Well chaired.

It is well chaired, actually, particularly on this bill. It was well discussed. I will go further. It was well chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson, who was not always there, of course. Some of us had to fill in.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: She was there for the bits that we got right.

Indeed. It also, though, was a bill that caused a lot of consideration and a very concentrated amount of examination. I would like to just pay tribute to the level of advice we received and the level of consideration that was given to the pertinent parts of this bill. I think, as a member of that committee, that we can honestly say that the work was earnestly done, that it was very well considered, and, in fact, that it will be a very satisfactory bill. But like all bills of this nature, it is part of a developing journey, as the requirements of members of Parliament, in fulfilling their function and meeting the requirements of Parliament, will change. They change with technology, they change with communications systems, and they change with the state that the country is in at any particular time.

It is interesting to read the history of Parliament. It is a rich history. Of course, MPs used to travel here by train and stay here for a number of months. The conditions do have to change.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Sailing ships.

Yes, indeed. I think what we have is a very good process. There is a large amount of independence in setting the salaries. It is not at the behest of parliamentarians any more. Travel has been considered. It is something that needs to be with the Speaker, and the committee recommended that change to the bill. The Clerk made the recommendation because travel by MPs is critical to the effective functioning of the House and is of fundamental democratic importance. Those of us from large electorates—and I can claim to live in one of the largest, I think, and I notice that the costs of travel are reflected by my colleagues in other parties who come from the same area. It is just a matter of fact that it is expensive to travel within an electorate, as well as from it to here.

I leave the select committee stage at this second reading very comfortable that full consideration has been given to the aspects of this bill that were controversial, and that the outcome will be satisfactory. I commend this bill to the House.

I am delighted to be speaking on the second reading of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill and I want to acknowledge all the members of the Government Administration Committee for their consideration of this bill. We had Chris Auchinvole, Eric Roy, Kanwaljit Bakshi, Trevor Mallard, and Metiria Turei. The membership changes sometimes on the committee, depending on the bill. There was unanimous agreement reached on the bill and that is not unusual for that committee, but it is unusual given the complexity of issues in this.

I want to just echo the words of my colleague Trevor Mallard and say that I am surprised, when we had reached unanimity on issues like this and worked actually very hard to get unanimity, that we now have a Supplementary Order Paper. That unanimity was because we heard from a lot of submitters who were experts in this area, we heard different views, and we talked about it a lot. There was no rushing of this. We wanted to try to get it right, in the interests of transparency and workability of these provisions. We got an extension of time for the report back of the bill in order to do that, so I am surprised that we now have a Supplementary Order Paper, which alters the bill fundamentally, presented by Metiria Turei, a member of the committee, which unanimously agreed to the provisions of this bill. It is unusual and I just want to put on the record my concern about that as being slightly out of the usual process when we are thinking about this bill.

A lot of people get very excited when Parliament is debating remuneration for its own members of Parliament, and I understand that. We do earn very high salaries compared with people who work as hard and often for as long hours as we do, so I am not surprised that members of the public are interested in this. I have heard some media reports this week that during this debate we would be determining our salary rate, and that is not true. Thank goodness Parliament no longer determines the salary of members of Parliament and Ministers. That so-called right has long ago gone. It is the job of the Remuneration Authority and it should never come back to this Parliament. People in this position of power should have the responsibility of exercising that power carefully. Determining your own salary does not have a role in that regime as far as I am concerned, so I am delighted that the Remuneration Authority has that responsibility.

What this bill does is, actually, many things, but one of the critical aspects of this bill is who determines the support services and travel allowances, and other business expenses that members of Parliament incur. Whose job is that? Is that a job for the Speaker, is that a job for the Minister responsible, or is it the job of the Remuneration Authority? That question is in relation to accommodation services, in relation to travel services—not just to members of Parliament but also to our families—resolution of issues about those services, and ongoing travel entitlements, as they are known, to former members of Parliament. In that package this bill has transferred to the Remuneration Authority those determinations that are currently with the Speaker or the Minister.

There was one area that was not contentious within the members on the committee so much as that the members were being offered very good information and advice from different submitters and they conflicted. So we had to say out of these two different views, both of which had a lot of merit, which one we would choose. We chose to amend the bill that had been referred to us in this one regard, and that was in relation to the travel services provided to members of Parliament.

It is our view that travel services are a fundamental part of a member of Parliament being able to operate properly, and being able to do their job, and, therefore, that the determination of those travel services should rest with the Speaker, whose job it is to make sure that every member of Parliament has the resources available to them to do their job properly. It is clearly not a perk. I was going to say nobody would say that travelling from their home to the capital was a perk. Perhaps the member of Parliament for Wellington Central, in whose electorate this fine building resides, considers that it is a big privilege for members from throughout the rest of the country to travel to Wellington, but, seriously, travel is a fundamental part of our job.

All of us, whether constituency members or list members of Parliament, are elected to represent that voice in Parliament and in order to do that, for about 32 weeks of the year we spend 3 days a week in the capital. Of course, both for Ministers and for members of Parliament there are other responsibilities that we have, as well as coming to Parliament, that involve travel. I remember that when I was the Minister for Senior Citizens I made a pledge to Grey Power that should they invite me to any branch of Grey Power throughout the country I would go to their meeting. They warmly welcomed that offer. I did not realise at the time that there were 77 branches of Grey Power throughout the country and over my time as Minister for Senior Citizens I visited over 55 of those 77 branches. I am making up for the remaining 20 in my time as Opposition spokesperson on senior citizens. But I did not consider that as anything other than a legitimate part of my job. It was a responsibility that I had taken up in that position and that is why I do think it is appropriate for that determination to be part of the legitimate role of a member of Parliament. But that does not extend to family members, so, in that regard, the select committee agreed that the determination of travel services for family members should properly sit with the Remuneration Authority.

We have done a few other things in this bill. One of the ones that I think the committee was most proud of—if that is the right term—was to ensure that it was very clear in the law that the support for members of Parliament with physical or sensory impairments is properly the responsibility of the House and not of the political party that that person happens to be representing. I hope that this sends a very strong and clear message to the disabled members of our communities who may have been put off seeking membership of this Parliament as an elected member and who were concerned that they might have to bear the responsibility for support services themselves.

This very same select committee that looked at this bill also has an inquiry into the accessibility of Parliament as a whole. This message from the committee will help in that consideration because it is a very clear stance in terms of members of Parliament, but our inquiry is looking even more broadly than that, at what access to information and services from members of Parliament can disabled members of our community expect.

My colleague Trevor Mallard mentioned the fact that it did not seem to be clear in the law that list members of Parliament who came in as a result of another list MP leaving and came in part-way through the term were entitled to be paid. We had a bit of a debate about that but we decided that we would include that coverage for every list member who came in part-way through the term. Obviously that has been the practice anyway, so, as the Attorney-General said, it was not an additional incurrence of any expenditure to the Crown—they had been getting paid.

There were also some opportunities, in the most negative sense of that word, for potential double-dipping and we wanted to use this opportunity to make sure that double-dipping did not occur. We do not think it has in the past; it was certainly not reported to us as having been the case, and we did ask. But we wanted to close down any opportunity for that in relation to members of Parliament who might get the 3-months’ post-retirement payment but then come in quite soon after that as a list MP. We did not want that sort of opportunity to be exploited. It is clearly not the intention of this Parliament that any member of Parliament deserves two bites at the cherry.

We have tried to make the rules very clear, very transparent, and workable. As I said earlier on, I was really impressed with the effort and energy that all members of the select committee put into dealing with some quite complex issues and I thank them all for that.

I was able to participate in the Government Administration Committee, which considered the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill, and I want to thank the select committee and Ruth Dyson for her chairing of that committee. The committee took a very practical approach to the issues, which have—over a number of years—been very, very hotly debated within committees, in various forms, and in the public. The public has a real interest in transparency—in their confidence that MPs will not be the deciders of the perks that we might have, and in there being real transparency in the process for how it is decided, and some real independence. So, it was good to be part of that discussion.

It is also true that we worked very hard. The Greens put up some real arguments about the changes to the bill that we did not agree to. We did not agree with the submission from the Clerk of the House, which was to change the bill so that the decision making for travel services for members of Parliament would be retained by the Speaker of the House. We do not agree with that position. We put that position to the select committee. We spent some weeks discussing whether that was the right or wrong thing to do.

What I was really pleased about, as a member of the committee in those discussions, is that—regardless of the fact that I lost the debate on that particular issue—there has no doubt been a shift in the way that MPs’ allowances, and those that might affect their families, have been decided. They are being decided more independently as a result of this legislation. That is a good thing. It is good to support progress when we do make progress because, Lord knows—anybody who has been watching this debate over the last 5, 6, or 10 years now—there can be a lot of heat and very, very little light when it comes to the issue of MPs’ expenses and allowances.

I would also just say that the Green Party has put forward Supplementary Order Paper 369 on this legislation. I think all members understand that select committees are not the arbiters of the final form of legislation—in fact, Parliament is. Parliament agreed at the first reading that this bill ought to include the provision for the Remuneration Authority to decide on the travel services for MPs. We are quite prepared, and we think it is our responsibility, to put that proposition back to Parliament as a whole, even though the Government Administration Committee decided in the end, for understandable reasons, to take it out. So we have a Supplementary Order Paper on the Table—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Unanimously.

—and that is what we are going to do. Absolutely.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Does that answer Mr Mallard’s question?

Yes, it does answer Mr Mallard’s question. So the Greens have been champions for transparency for well over 10 years now. It was started by Rod Donald, our lovely co-leader. The call for transparency and reform in MPs’ pay and allowances—our campaign on these issues has led to real change. I think that has been really significant. We now have MPs’ travel and accommodation disclosed publicly every quarter. That followed the Greens’ campaign in 2009, where we made our own commitment to that disclosure. I do want to just recognise Speaker Lockwood Smith, who took the model that the Green Party was using, and had proposed, and applied that across the board to all MPs. So now we do have that disclosure.

At the time of that debate about whether it should apply to everybody, there was enormous resistance from MPs. There was a great deal of fear that if this information was disclosed, MPs would suffer, month after month, attacks—public attacks and attacks in the media—about the money that was being spent. What we have seen over time is that it is of interest to some people, and some people may comment, but the fact of having transparency has given the public some confidence, at least, that we are prepared to tell them what it is that we are doing. So all of the heat that was initially in that debate and all of the fear that MPs expressed over that disclosure were ultimately shown to be untrue.

Part of the difficulty we have around the decision that the select committee made to keep the decisions around travel allowances with the Speaker is that the argument for that, too, was an argument around fear and mistrust—that the Remuneration Authority would not understand the travel requirements of MPs and might make changes to those allowances that would not give MPs the ability to be able to come to Parliament to do their work here or to be able to travel to other places to do their work there. There was a great sense, I think, of mistrust in that debate. That mistrust is just not justified. I think that in all of the work we have done to try to reform our allowances and remuneration systems, it has been proven time and time again that the public want to know, but they also understand that we do an important job and need the resources to do it. The Remuneration Authority does take these issues seriously and will not make unnecessary reform. There is no justification for that fear or mistrust. That is one other reason why we are bringing back to Parliament the ability to decide to move the travel allowances to the Remuneration Authority, rather than keeping it with the Speaker.

We are also very pleased with the bill to the extent that it is a step towards putting in practice, I guess, a motion that I had put to the Parliamentary Service Commission some time before. I put a motion to the Parliamentary Service Commission that we advise the Speaker to establish an independent body to review MPs’ expenses and allowances, including travel allowances, with a view to the separation of what is personal and what is genuinely parliamentary, and that a further independent body be established or identified, whose role would be to set MPs allowances and expenses, including travel.

So to the extent that this bill was actually part of that debate and that there was an open opportunity for the public to have a say about independence and the separation between personal and parliamentary, we were able to hear very directly the views of the Clerk of the House, who keeps her views to herself most of the time. She too had an open opportunity to express what she thought about these changes. We went some way towards genuinely having an open debate about it. We were very pleased to see that that process happened, because at the Parliamentary Service Commission, of course, my motion to have those two things happen was declined by the MPs who were there. So we are seeing slow but continual change. That is why we will support the bill.

I would note that the Law Commission also supports our position of having the travel allowances moved out of the decision making of the Speaker to the Remuneration Authority, and that it expressed some disappointment that the bill that has come back does not do that. Again, I think what we are seeing here is an evolutionary process of change. We are trying as best as possible to take as many people, as many MPs, actually, as we can—the whole parliamentary system—with us on the debate to genuine transformation and independence. That will take some time, and is taking quite a bit of time. It has been 4 years since the 2009 debate on transparency. So it is good to see progress, albeit that it is slow.

We too are very pleased to see that the bill recognises the need to have independent funding for those who have impairments, to make sure that an MP who has an impairment is in no way prejudiced in their ability to engage in their duties simply because of that impairment. As Ruth Dyson quite rightly said, this is about making sure all New Zealanders—and there are hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders with all sorts of, different kinds of, impairments that may lead them to feel that they have no role or place in Parliament, that they have no role in the decision making at this highest level. Every step we take to make it clear to our community that they deserve to be genuinely represented—to be represented by members of their own community in this place—and to have their own voices heard in this place is critically important. So we are very pleased to see that we could make a change in this bill that expressly provided for MPs with impairments.

We are seeing that in other parts of the reform around Parliamentary Service too as more and more MPs, and as the system itself, become more aware of the need to be open to accessibility issues. Again, this is an evolutionary process. We are seeing this change happen slowly, but we are very pleased that it is happening. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute during the second reading of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. This legislation provides a new framework under which members of Parliament and members of the executive earn their entitlements. The current legislation is at times considered to be lacking in clarity, transparency, and independence. Based on recommendations, the National Government has provided a bill that establishes the system for determining services to be provided to members of Parliament.

Members of Parliament and the executive need to have proper support, and people need to have confidence in Parliament. By introducing this legislation, we hope to clarify any grey areas around travel and accommodation services, which have, to date, caused most public concerns. By introducing this bill, we will be improving the independence of the determination of those services.

This bill represents a significant improvement in the law under which elected members earn their remuneration and entitlements to services. We in the National Party want to ensure that our entitlements are set independently and are transparent. With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

The entitlements of MPs and Ministers in this Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill will be transparent, independent, and non-partisan. That gives a level of confidence and trust for the public to have in a regime that has been—not picked on over the past few years, but I think it has needed that sort of trust put back into the community.

There is more power than ever before in the hands of an independent decision maker. I think that goes a long way to instilling some trust and some confidence on the part of the community in their elected representatives. The bill not only improves what has taken place before but enhances those measures taken by the Prime Minister and by a number of other people.

I will not take too long in the House, but I do want to say, and echo the comments that have been made, that this bill has—so far—travelled through its stages in a non-partisan manner. Now we are faced with many amendments that were never ever raised in the Government Administration Committee. I have heard Metiria Turei comment on the reasons why. I think that in the spirit of bipartisan work she should have raised those issues in the select committee. I think that those issues should have been ironed out in the select committee. What it looks like now is a bit of grandstanding. Having said all that, I do commend the bill to the House, and hope that there will be more bipartisan work across the House.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the second reading of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. Obviously, a number of people have referred to the work of the Government Administration Committee on this bill and to the way that the select committee members worked together. I too would like to acknowledge the chair of that select committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson, who I think is well known as an extremely good chair. The Government Administration Committee received and considered 18 submissions from interested groups and individuals, and heard seven submissions. The bill we are now debating is of course strengthened by the submissions and contributions of those people.

This bill seeks to establish a new framework for setting entitlements for members of Parliament. It is a bill that has four main parts to it, and considers a range of elements. Part 1 is just the preliminary provisions. We then go through from there to salaries and allowances of members of Parliament. Just to be crystal clear, this is not about what members of Parliament are getting; this is about the how—how these matters are set. Part 3 is around services, and Part 4 is around the entitlements of former members, and miscellaneous matters.

I think one of the important factors to note is that this bill, in seeking to set up that new framework, is implementing, subject to some modifications, most of the recommendations of the Law Commission’s report Review of the Civil List Act 1979—Members of Parliament and Ministers. Essentially, the bill is recommending that the Remuneration Authority should determine accommodation services to members, travel services to members’ families, and resolution of issues about these services, and the ongoing travel entitlements of former members. Those are currently determined by the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services.

The important point here is that moving those things to the Remuneration Authority is really part of a process of increasing transparency and clarity, and also, I guess, of managing the competing interests of ensuring that members of Parliament are properly supported in carrying out their functions, but also maintaining confidence in the integrity of Parliament. That balance is really important. All of us in this Chamber will know that members of Parliament are not universally well regarded by the public, and that many people consider that we have many flaws and that we are probably overpaid for not doing a job well.

We know that members of Parliament generally—and, I would say, across the House—enter this place for the right reasons. They want to make a difference, want to represent New Zealanders, and want to help change things and scrutinise things in the right manner. Clearly, members of Parliament need to be adequately resourced to do that job and have the services that they need to be able to do that work. As the Hon Ruth Dyson outlined when she was talking about travel provisions, the fact of that matter is that it is not just about coming from your home town to this place, in Wellington, and being here in the debating chamber and then going back. Doing the job properly requires members of Parliament to have the ability to travel where New Zealanders are and to fulfil their responsibilities in terms of portfolio responsibilities. For example, the Hon Ruth Dyson was talking about her commitment to—I think it was—Grey Power, and then finding out how many locations around New Zealand that they were in. Likewise—and I am sure that others could identify examples—the ability to do the job is the ability to talk to relevant people wherever they are in New Zealand. In my own case, I have been talking to budget services up and down New Zealand about what they are seeing New Zealanders experiencing, the difficulties that they are having, and the level of debt that they are carrying. It is important to look at that from the point of view of different places within this country. So, it is a part of doing the job to be able to do that. It is certainly not a perk. I just want to emphasise again, though, that this bill is about how these matters are sorted and set, rather than the what.

I do want to comment on two things in particular. As I have said, the bill is about increasing the transparency and clarity of the requirements for reporting members’ and former members’ entitlements to travel and accommodation services, and of the provision of members’ superannuation. We must be transparent. We must be clear about what those things are and willing and able to confidently assert those to the public, and for the public to see that they have been set in a reasonable and independent manner, independent from ourselves.

The other matter that I particularly wanted to identify was the support for members with physical or sensory impairments. I think this is a really positive step forward for this Parliament. In doing this we are providing for entitlements to services to be determined in a way that takes into account the particular requirements of members with physical or sensory impairments. At this point I want to acknowledge the Green MP Mojo Mathers for her role in ensuring that these matters have really come to be seen as important and that they require dealing with. This bill is part of that. We need to ensure that this House is truly representative and that any member of Parliament who is here has the right support and the ability to do their job of representing New Zealanders, and I think that it is a very positive thing indeed that the provisions have been made within this bill.

I would also just note that I think this was done in a reasonably cross-party manner, as well. This is separate from this bill, but I just comment that recently work was done around the needs of members of Parliament with family responsibilities, and I recently saw an article about Holly Walker and her baby. I guess that while I am talking about Holly, I will congratulate her on that. I acknowledge that she is getting leave to look after her new baby, which I think is a very positive thing, indeed. We want to ensure—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The baby frequents the Pētone cafes.

The baby frequents cafes? At such a young age, too. But it is positive that we can ensure that this place is truly representative, and the fact that people can come into Parliament and, you know, have their families and still do their job is a positive thing and one that should be acknowledged. As I have said, members of Parliament with physical or sensory impairments, as is provided for in this bill, are also able to come to this House and do their job.

I think that we sought—and the select committee worked hard on this, I understand—to ensure that the bill does achieve that appropriate balance between the interests of ensuring that members do get properly supported in carrying out their roles and functions, and maintaining the confidence of Parliament, on the other hand. Moving many of the matters to the Remuneration Authority, which is independent from members of Parliament, rather than having matters be determined primarily by the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services has, I believe, improved that. With that, I would like to commend this bill to the House.

I rise to take a very brief call on the second reading of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. It is important that the public has confidence in the regime for setting the entitlements of members of Parliament and Ministers. This bill puts more power in the hands of independent decision makers. The Government is committed to having MPs’ and Ministers’ entitlements determined in a transparent, independent, and non-partisan manner, and the Government has already taken action to improve transparency, including the regular disclosure of travel and documentation costs.

This action is being taken a step further by making disclosure a requirement in this bill. So I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

It is my fault that the member has had to hurry back to his seat—we were conversing. This is down for a 5-minute call, so I am calling Grant Robertson. I do not know whether the Green Party is taking a split call on this bill. Is it?

💬 Gareth Hughes: We are.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): OK. So it is 5-minute call to Grant Robertson.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and my apologies to the House for having to sort out some matters of logistics there with the Assistant Speaker.

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: Good to see you run.

That is right. My only exercise for the day, Ms Bennett—I will do my best. The important points I wanted to get across about this bill, the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill, are the extent to which this is actually about the how of remuneration, not the what. I think that an important consideration for members of the public who are watching this debate is that what is being debated today is the way in which the salaries of members of Parliament, the allowances for members of Parliament, and other matters are dealt with, rather than the exact amount that members of Parliament are paid or the exact amount of travel entitlements—or travel privileges, rather—that we may have.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Travel expenses.

Business expenses, in fact, as my colleague Trevor Mallard says, and he is very right in that regard. Something that I think members of the public perhaps sometimes find difficult to understand about the way in which parliamentarians are serviced and resourced and how they are paid is around that question of travel.

Obviously, what the bill does is make some changes to the arrangements, whereby the Remuneration Authority will be responsible for accommodation, the travel of family members, and the travel privileges for former members while the Speaker retains the responsibility for MPs’ travel. The reason from the Government Administration Committee for that, as I understand it, is that MPs’ travel is essentially a business expense—it is a business role. The reason for travel by MPs is to undertake our duties.

I have often thought that one of the issues here is that when most people go on an aeroplane or travel, they are going on holiday, and that is what they associate the act of travelling on an aeroplane with. Not me, as the MP for Wellington Central—there are no flights from Wilton down to Parliament—but most of the members of Parliament who are here get on an aeroplane to go to work, and for MPs the 1-hour commute from Auckland to Wellington is like driving on the motorway in Auckland. I know, and I can understand and appreciate, why members of the public, who generally find themselves on flights when they are lucky enough to be able to go on holiday, might associate air travel in a way that is somehow or other to do with holidays. It is not, in this particular instance; it is to do with our role as parliamentarians.

I further understand that part of the justification given by the select committee for not moving MPs’ travel to the Remuneration Authority is that the potential end result of doing that could be that a member of Parliament was unable to fulfil their duty as a parliamentarian. They would effectively breach privilege and not be here as a parliamentarian, potentially, as the result of a decision by the Remuneration Authority, and that is what distinguishes travel by MPs from the other privileges that are now being handed over to the Remuneration Authority.

I have to say that from a personal point of view I find this whole thing unsatisfactory. Labour will be voting for this bill because it is the consensus that was come to by parties at the select committee, and it is important on issues like this that we work on the basis of a consensus and a unanimous approach, but I personally believe that the whole issue requires further work.

There were other proposals provided that I personally think could merit consideration. I have heard proposals that the salaries of MPs are set at the start of the 3-year term and it is left as that for that whole 3-year term, and everybody has the same expectations about what those salaries would be. They would be set by the previous Parliament, potentially, and then be carried on by a new Parliament. Another idea is the one that you could index the payments to inflation. I think there are a lot of other ways.

For me, this is a very awkward piece of legislation. It tries to fix some problems, which I think it does quite well, particularly around MPs with physical and sensory impairments. It deals with the question of the absences of MPs and the deduction of salaries in a much better way, which actually acknowledges the fact that if people are absent without the authorised leave, they should suffer a proper penalty for that. I think the bill has dealt well with those matters. What I am less comfortable about is that we have got a bit of a muddle of arrangements around the privileges and travel, and I do believe that we will probably end up revisiting this. However, this is the consensus and we are prepared to support it on that basis.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak in support of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. I do not think there is anything that probably excites the talkback callers and gives the newspaper cartoonists more creative ideas than MPs’ remuneration and so-called perks. If we are going to have a public that have confidence in our Parliament and our elected representatives, it is critical that we get this right. The Green Party believes we are making a step in the right direction with this bill, and that is why we will be supporting it.

Obviously, it is something that we have talked about for an awfully long time in this Parliament. For 10 years or more the Greens have been the ones championing having a transparent regime when it comes to expenses, when it comes to travel, and when it comes to pay because not only is it the right thing and the reason that the public could have more confidence in us but it is also the way that we can make the right decisions in our daily lives. We have seen it on the front pages of the papers in New Zealand and around the world, particularly in the UK. It is critical that we get this right. Transparency and sunlight are an important part of it. Ultimately, it comes down to your principles, and the Green Party’s core principle is appropriate decision-making.

When you see the cartoons of the pigs with their heads in the trough, it is obviously not appropriate to have those who are benefiting from the decisions being the ones making them. That is why for a long time we have called for an independent body to set our pay, our travel, and our accommodation entitlements so that we can do our work.

I would like to say that the Greens can quite proudly take a bit of credit for some of the movement we have seen in New Zealand. At the time of the superannuation scandals that we saw in this Parliament, it was the Greens who voluntarily decided in 2009 to release publicly our expense accounts. Now Parliament has followed suit, which is a very positive step. Metiria Turei, back in around 2009, I think it was, put a motion to the Parliamentary Service Commission, which is part of the reason that we are here today. It was great to see the Law Commission’s report in 2009.

What we see in this bill are some steps in the right direction. We see the so-called Chris Carter clause—the $10 maximum penalty per day for MPs absent without leave—finally being increased to a meaningful amount. We see the voluntary disclosure regime for MPs’ travel and accommodation become statutory. And, quite rightly, we celebrate with other parties in Parliament new clause 17(1)(ab), where entitlements to services should be determined in a way that has regard to the particular requirements of any members in Parliament with physical or sensory impairments.

It was a bit of a battle behind the scenes to get the appropriate services so that Mojo Mathers could do her job as New Zealand’s first profoundly deaf MP. It is unfortunate that we had to push and we had to struggle to get there, but I am glad that our Parliament has got there, and now we are doing the right thing in terms of this legislation. I am sure that we will deal with that in the Standing Orders review as well. We are doing the right thing, because any MP with an impairment, be it physical or sensory, should be able to represent their community, their electors, in this Parliament. What this Parliament should not be doing is sending the message to those Kiwis with those sensory or physical impairments that it is going to be harder for your party or your colleagues if you are in the House. That is why we think it is important that a strong message is sent. Their voices are valued in this House of Representatives, and it is great to see that in this legislation.

Where we had difficulty with this legislation was in the original proposal both by the Law Commission and in the original, first reading copy of the bill, and that was to have the travel and accommodation entitlements dealt with by the Remuneration Authority. We still believe that that is the appropriate venue for this. We do not think it is appropriate to put that back on the Speaker’s shoulders. Obviously, I think that transparency and appropriate decision-making are critical. That is why Metiria Turei has Supplementary Order Paper 369 in front of this House to try to ameliorate this.

I think the arguments around MPs’ travel to and from Wellington are spurious. Obviously, MPs have to do it. But the core of the matter is who makes the decisions, who sets the rates. Instead of the Speaker of Parliament setting them, it should be an independent authority. It is critically important that Parliament sorts out these issues so that the public can have confidence in us and so we can have appropriate decision-making. That is why I think we obviously need to have an independent body to set our travel and accommodation entitlements.

I think it is high time that this Parliament and members of this House got rid of their voluntary personal travel perk. It is a perk. I voluntarily renounced it when I entered this Parliament in 2009. What we need to do is make Parliamentary Service travel expenses able to be requested under the Official Information Act, and, obviously, we need to do a lot more to clean up the system. Kia ora.

I commend the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.