Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill

Part 3 deals with services for members of Parliament. I refer members to clause 17, which sets out the principles. There are to be three decision makers in relation to the provision of services for MPs. They are the Remuneration Authority, the Speaker, and, in certain circumstances, the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services. In relation to all the services that the respective decision makers provide, they are to have regard to certain principles, and it is worth noting those principles, including the need to be fair to the taxpayer, the need for the promotion of transparency, and the maintenance of confidence in the integrity of Parliament and in the independence of the Remuneration Authority.

There are three types of services. Clause 18 sets out the services to be provided by the Remuneration Authority and the way in which the authority is to make its determination. Clause 24 provides that the Speaker is to be given responsibility for setting directions on travel and communications services for MPs and on party and member support funding, and sets out the way in which the Speaker is to go about making that determination.

Clause 27A deals with the provision of services, or entitlements, for Ministers. The Minister responsible for Ministerial Services is to make that determination, and the following clauses set out how the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services is to go about that task. The only other clause I would refer members to is clause 30, which provides for quarterly reports on travel and accommodation expenses to be prepared by the general manager of the Parliamentary Service and to be made available in respect of each member of Parliament and each party.

Again, I will make my contribution on Part 3 relatively brief. I guess the first point that I would like to make in reading through Part 3, and particularly clause 17—actually, most of the clauses have it in them—is on the use of the word “entitlement”. I think that if I was writing the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill from scratch, I would avoid the use of the word “entitlement”, because I think the public, quite rightly, get upset about that, and what we are actually talking about are business-related expenses. These are the expenses that members of Parliament incur in order to be representatives of the people—to do the job that we are sent here to do. So we are talking about travel to get to and from Parliament and to get around the country in order to be able to see people and represent them, and accommodation for those people when they are travelling around the country and when they are here in Wellington. They are work-related expenses.

I particularly want to draw the attention of the Committee and of those members of the public who are listening to clause 17(1)(b), because I think that there is a lot of public misunderstanding around the personal benefits from the job-related expenses that we get. What clause 17(1)(b) does is basically say that if there is a personal benefit arising from any of the expenses that are covered through our parliamentary activities, that will be taken into consideration by the Remuneration Authority when our salaries are determined. In other words, if through this legislation, or through any determinations issued by the Speaker or the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services or through the Remuneration Authority, we end up with things that we personally benefit from, we will effectively end up being paid less as a result of that. So there is a safeguard in there for the taxpayer that none of the decision makers in this legislation can do things that will give members of Parliament a personal benefit without there being some offset against the salaries that we receive, and I think that that is quite right. I think that that is a very legitimate expectation. It adheres to the principles that are set out in the Act about being fair to the taxpayer—which I think is very, very important—about there being transparency, and about the need for public understanding of the work that members of Parliament do. I think that those things are relatively well safeguarded in here.

If I was writing this bill from scratch, I would do it differently, and, again, I think one of the things that I would say is that I would try to avoid the use of the term “entitlement” because I think that that sends all of the wrong messages around what we are trying to do. What we need to do here, and what this legislation aims to do, is ensure that members of Parliament can be effective advocates for the people who vote for us, who send us here to Parliament. So that involves our need to be able to be here in Wellington. I am one of the members who can speak with no conflict here. I do not get any Wellington accommodation allowance. I do not have any interest in that, whatsoever. But I absolutely accept that members of Parliament who do not live in Wellington should have that. They should be able to stay here. They should be able to find accommodation arrangements that are appropriate for them, and that should be covered, because I do not see how they could possibly do their jobs as members of Parliament without it.

I also benefit probably less from, or have less reason to be concerned about, the travel sections of this bill too, because, again, I am a Wellington member of Parliament. I drive home every day, so I stay at my house. I do not fly as much as other members do, but I absolutely defend the rights of members of Parliament when it comes to their air travel, as well. I think it is very important that members of Parliament have the flexibility to travel to and from their constituencies using air travel and have the flexibility to travel around the country to attend to other things. Although I am an absolute advocate for transparency, one of the things that would concern me greatly is the idea that members of Parliament would stop travelling and stop making themselves available to the voting public, to the general public, because of potential perceptions and risks. So if every time a member of Parliament agrees to travel somewhere and thinks that they will have to justify that very trip and justify that individual airfare, then the result of that would be that members of Parliament will attend fewer events and will become less accessible to members of the public. Again, I say this as someone who probably has less reason to call on these services than others, because I live in Wellington.

I absolutely think it is important that we have transparency to the point that is necessary for the public to be assured that the system is not being abused and that members of Parliament are not claiming and personally benefiting from things that they should not be, but I also absolutely think that it is important that members of Parliament have the freedom to travel around the country, when necessary, to do the job that the New Zealand public require us to do.

We have some amendments to Part 3, but they are essentially to the same effect as the amendment I described earlier, which is to re-include the travel of MPs in the determinations that are made by the Remuneration Authority, rather than leaving that with the Speaker. I understand Chris Hipkins’ view, and there is potentially some logic to it. The other view is that if we in Parliament are to treat travel services as a critical tool for the purposes of doing our job, then I think the other option is that they remain with the Speaker, as will be the case if this bill passes as it is at the moment. They remain with the Speaker, but that is for parliamentary purpose only. Just as when we sign off our budgets and the various things that we have to do every month for the parliamentary spending that we do, we have to sign a little piece of paper that says: “This spending is for parliamentary purpose.” We do—you know, everybody has to do it. In having to do that we are having to make a genuine declaration that this travel is for parliamentary purpose. But the problem with travel is that we are entitled to use it for personal reasons. That is it. That is—

💬 Chris Hipkins: So if an MP flies home to attend to a sick child, is that a parliamentary purpose?

Well, there is a question there. I agree, Mr Hipkins, and it might be that the right to travel from where you are for your work to your home is considered to be part of your parliamentary purpose, given that you are entitled to get back to your house, right? So we might have to look at how the parliamentary purpose reflects the nature of the job. MPs have to move from their home to Parliament, and from their home to some other place to do some work, and back to their home. That is not unreasonable for us to have that conversation, but the issue is—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

If anybody is curious as to why I have this lovely young thing standing next to me, her name is Jellybean Harakeke. She is part of the Buddy Day campaign that is being run by Child Matters over the next week. The campaign encourages adults to adopt a buddy, to carry the buddy around with us, and to encourage conversations about how adults can prevent child abuse and engage in real solutions to prevent child abuse. That is why I have my buddy, Jellybean Harakeke, with me today.

Before the dinner break I was just responding to issues raised by Chris Hipkins about the travel allowances part of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. He was suggesting that in the current system, whereby MPs have access to travel for our work, we are also able to use travel allowances for personal reasons as well. He was suggesting that part of the trade-off is that the Remuneration Authority assesses the value of that personal use and then, in determining our salaries, takes away—subtracts from the final determination—the value of that personal use.

That is one way of doing it, and it is the way that it has been done. The Green Party’s view is that it is not the most transparent way. It is not the most straightforward way. In fact, a better way would be for the travel allowance to be for parliamentary purpose only. Yes, that would require some understanding or rule-setting around what “parliamentary purpose” means. For example—and Chris Hipkins raised the issue—what would happen if an MP was away from town, away from home, on parliamentary business and needed to get home? Well, one could reasonably argue that the travel itself is for a parliamentary purpose and therefore it is reasonable for the travel home to be included in that purpose. That would have to be a discussion.

My argument here is that if travel is to remain with the Speaker as the bill currently sets out and because travel is considered to be an essential tool for MPs to operate in our job—like our laptops, like our office furniture, or whatever other kinds of tools you may want to consider—then there is an argument that that tool should be restricted for parliamentary purpose. That would take away, then, the perception that the public might have—and I think they do have, actually—that MPs want to retain control over the travel allowances because they want to retain the ability to travel for personal reasons as well as parliamentary purpose.

So what is the trade-off here? One trade-off we could have is to agree that travel stays with the Speaker but is restricted and is not available for MPs to use for personal travel. We have not had that conversation yet. This is another one of those issues that remain unresolved. The issue is unresolved—that is, whether travel should be restricted to parliamentary purpose only with no provision for personal use—because we have not discussed that. That has not been a matter that MPs have wanted to discuss in the Parliamentary Service Commission and elsewhere, even though it is an issue that has been raised by the Law Commission, the Appropriations Review Committee, and in other areas. The Greens’ view is that the travel should also then move to the Remuneration Authority.

It is therefore critical for an independent agency to set the travel rules. We actually cannot have it both ways, where we get to decide our own travel allowance and we get to keep—or decide to keep—the personal component of that travel allowance. I do not think the public believe that that is the right thing to do. I do not believe that the public should be mistrusted by MPs, either. I think we can trust the public to have a reasonable view about the tools that we need to do our jobs and to have a reasonable view about the travel that we need to do our jobs. Some people will always complain about the resources that we use. But, again, in my experience of travelling around the country and talking to people about these issues, the vast majority of people understand that we need to use our travel allowance to get around. They understand and they want us to be able to get out to a variety of areas and talk to a variety of communities. They want to see and hear their representatives from a wide range of parties and over a wide range of issues.

They do not, in the main, believe that we are intentionally trying to maintain our own personal benefit to the extent that perhaps the media makes out sometimes, but the public want to be trusted to hold that view. One of the ways that we can demonstrate that trust is to give over the authority to make these decisions ourselves. It does us no harm. It does us only good if we agree that the public can be trusted to hold our interests at heart; that the independent authority can be trusted to make a reasonable decision about the allowances that we need to do our work.

Therefore, at the end of the day, all of this takes the political heat out. We do not end up with the kind of front-page news stories that we currently have. The more transparent we are, the more information that we provide, and the less we hold on to the authority to make decisions about these things ourselves, the more the public will then agree with what it is that we need to do our jobs and trust us to do them with their interests at heart.

So I urge MPs to vote for Supplementary Order Paper 369 that I have on the Table, which, again, reinstates travel services as being a determination of the Remuneration Authority. I think that is a positive move. It is a practical move. It is a principled move. It gives confidence to the public that we are not here to further our own interests, that we are not here simply to improve our own personal financial wealth, but we are here to serve the public and to use public resources in a way that is wise and transparent. Thank you.

I call and recognise the Hon Ruth Dyson.

Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I am pleased that you recognise me. We have worked together quite a lot and I think I would be quite disappointed if you did not, actually. I want to make a small contribution in relation to Part 3 of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill and, in particular, draw the attention of members in this debate to what I think is actually one of the most important parts of this bill: the principles that are outlined in clause 17.

Clause 17, “Principles”, talks about what the Remuneration Authority, the Speaker, and the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services must have regard to in setting determinations or issuing instructions. It says some really important things. Clause 17(1)(a) says: “that the entitlements of members of Parliament and Ministers to support services should be determined in a way that—(i) recognises the need for public understanding of the work of those persons and their parties and the services they require to enable them to carry out their roles and functions;”. It is really important that we recognise the need for public understanding and also the fact that it is the public who is funding these support services.

What also has to be considered is that any such determination has to facilitate “the delivery of support services in an efficient and effective manner;”, so we cannot be frivolous in terms of the support services we have. They have to be efficient and effective. A determination recognises “the need to be fair to the taxpayer;”. That is a really important principle to have in the legislation. It “promotes transparency in relation to the allocation and use of public money to provide the support services necessary for members of Parliament, Ministers, and parties to carry out their respective roles and functions; and (v) maintains confidence in the integrity of Parliament; and (vi) maintains the independent of the Remuneration Authority:”.

I think we should be very appreciative of the fact that in New Zealand we have those principles of fairness, of transparency, of public understanding and support, and of maintaining confidence in the integrity of Parliament and the independence of the Remuneration Authority. I bet that many other countries around the world would be very envious of us having in our legislation such provisions. I think as New Zealand members of Parliament we should be very proud that that is actually the legal requirement for those different bodies when setting determinations or issuing directions.

The other important provision that I just want to draw to the attention of the Committee is also in the same clause but it is actually subclause (1)(b). It relates to what is often seen as the tension between what members of Parliament need to do their job properly—whether it is a phone or a flight to a meeting or an engagement you have been invited to, or have to attend, as a constituency MP or as a portfolio holder in that area—or some other support service that is provided to us in order to do our job. The tension arises when members of public see that support service as a private benefit.

I want to just draw the attention of the Committee to 17(1)(b), which says: “that if services provided include an element of remuneration or result in any other private benefit, the value of that benefit should be taken into account by the Remuneration Authority in determining relevant salaries and allowances…”. So if there is a private benefit that is gained by a member of Parliament through any of the other support services that we are given, the Remuneration Authority say: “Well, you gain X, Y, and Z from that particular determination. You gain that as a private benefit. Therefore, when it comes to setting the salaries of members of Parliament that amount will be deducted.”

I think that having that transparency is really important so that the Remuneration Authority does not do it behind closed doors. It can actually say: “This is the private benefit that a member of Parliament gains from that determination, and therefore we are going to take that same amount off their salary when we take into consideration any increase or adjustment to the salary.” I am very pleased with those two provisions. I think they are very important and enhance the strength of this bill.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 389 in the name of the Rt Hon John Key to Part 3 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Metiria Turei’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 369 deleting clause 27D is out of order as it is contrary to an earlier decision of the Committee. So that has been ruled on. But we do have another one in the name of the honourable member Metiria Turei. It is the remaining amendments to Part 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 369. All those in favour please say Aye, to the contrary No. The Noes have it?

💬 Hon Members: Party vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Party vote called for. The Clerk will please conduct a party vote. Just to make sure, and so that I am not confused, these are Metiria Turei’s remaining amendments to Part 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 369. That is what I have here. So it is not the one that was set out on Supplementary Order Paper 369 deleting clause 27D, because that was out of order. But there is another one. I think the Greens will want to vote for this one. So let me put it again.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: They’ve said that. They’ve called a party vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): You want a party vote? I just want to make sure you know what the situation is. OK, we will have a party vote. Please conduct a party vote.

The question was put that the remaining amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 369 in the name of Metiria Turei to Part 3 be agreed to.