Turei Metiria: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2314. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I just want to ask a couple of questions to get some clarification from the Minister in the chair Michael Woodhouse before I talk about the three Supplementary Order Papers on the Table under my name. The first thing is I think he was saying earlier that under National’s watch there has been no increase greater than 2 percent in MPs’ pay except for this most recent one. Am I right Mr Woodhouse that that was your comment? Because that is certainly not what the Parliamentary Library has said. It has described the percentage increases in MPs’ pay under the current regime as being from 2010-11 2.9 percent; 2011-12 5.2 percent; 2 percent in 2012-13; and 2.2 percent in 2013-14.There have been significant increases in MPs’ pay and they are percentage increases which means of course that compared with those on lower incomes who are getting a similarincrease—and it is very rare that they would—MPs’ pay is still going up considerably more in cash terms.That is where there is a significant failure in this bill that the Green Party intends to remedy with our Supplementary Order Paper 57 because this bill still applies a percentage increase. So if there is a 1.5 percentincrease or whatever it is arising out of the quarterly employment survey calculation and that is applied to MPs we still get more cash in our pockets than most of the rest of the public sector. That is the problem. Our wages will continue to grow and the gap between MPs and the rest of the population will continue to grow when you use a percentage formula because percentage formulas when you are talking about pay increases are very blunt tools. Percentage increases sound good because everyone is in theory getting the same but in fact when you have an increasingly divided society it means that those who get rich get richer faster and those at the bottom stay stuck.The Green Party solution to this which we announced in March last year—so it has been available for the Government to consider for some time—is to attach MPs’ pay not to percentage increases in the median wage but to nominal increases. So if the median wage goes up by 50 bucks a year MPs’ wages go up by 50 bucks a year. If it goes up by 200 bucks a year MPs’ wages go up by 200 bucks a year. Under our Supplementary Order Paper if it goes down if people lose forward momentum in their wages and in the median wage then so do MPs. Some of you will have seen the calculations that we sent out. In at least one of the years 2010-11 if our proposal was in place and had been in place since 2007 then in 2010-11 MPs’ pay would have gone down because the nominal median wage went down.We think it is so important to attach it to real income and the real lives of ordinary New Zealanders so that we are directly connected to their lived experience of their place in the economy. For MPs it might not be a problem. Losing 500 bucks a year in our pay is not necessarily going to mean that we are going to have problems buying milk and bread right? Because we all get paid pretty bloody well in this place. But for those on low wages and particularly on the median wage and wages lower than that it does make a difference. Every dollar makes a difference and we are shielded from that.We make the decisions about the dollars that they get and we are shielded from the reality of that. Hell I cannot even get the Prime Minister to come to a decile 1 school to meet with the kids there who do not have lunch every day. If we are that separated from the community we are supposed to be here to represent then of course we are going to make decisions that are not in its best interests but are instead in ours—which is exactly what the Minister’s bill as he has put it forward is doing. It makes it look like he is doing something useful; it is essentially the maintenance of the status quo. It locks in increases in MPs’ pay on a percentage basis and thereby increases the inequity between MPs and the community we are here to represent. We can change that at virtually no cost to ourselves. I agree with whoever it was on the National side who said we are not here for the money. Right? I totally agree with that. If that is the case then why are we so concerned to make sure we lock in pay increases for ourselves? Nobody else gets anything like that kind of certainty in their pay including the staff who work in this place. Nobody gets that level of certainty. Why can we not allow ourselves to be connected in this way to the rest of the community?I strongly urge members to look at our amendment Supplementary Order Paper 57. I just want to acknowledge the staff from the Clerk’s Office who have managed to prepare these three Supplementary Order Papers for the House in a very short period of time. Have a look at the calculation there—yes it uses algebra too; no I do not pretend to understand it. I am very grateful for those who do and are able to interpret our intentions into this technical bill. It does mean that we would have a direct pay-relationship with the majority of the community. It would be in our best interests then to improve the circumstances of everybody in our community not just the wealthy few. That is our responsibility. It is our responsibility as the Government on that side of the House and it is our responsibility as a Parliament to always be making decisions in the best interests of the majority of New Zealanders and particularly in the economic interests of the most vulnerable. This bill gives us a chance to do that in a very demonstrable physical way where we are affected—MPs would be affected—by our poor decisions that leave poorer New Zealanders worse off. That would be a true connection that we could make with our community. So I urge members to support this Supplementary Order Paper. Thank you.