Martin Tracey: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2284. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to put forward a contribution on the Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge the contribution by Metiria Turei and some very very interesting points that she has raised. At this stage at this first reading New Zealand First will support this bill through but I do believe that Metiria Turei has articulated some really very interesting questions concerns and points that I hope get fleshed out as we have this conversation. I am not confident about that but I would like to think that they might be.I think it has been articulated by the Green Party contribution and by the Labour Party contribution that urgency is not the best way to bring legislation to the floor of the House. It is with serious concern that New Zealand First notes that this bill was supposed to come to the floor of the House a couple of times last week—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Once. Only once.TRACEY MARTIN: Well it depends on your communication I guess Mr Woodhouse. Anyway a couple of times last week and today we finally have it. There was the bill and a Supplementary Order Paper. I have received instructions that they have been combined.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes they have.TRACEY MARTIN: They have. So that happened this morning?Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes.TRACEY MARTIN: It happened this morning. So therefore this bill has actually been available only since just prior to question time which is not the best way to have confidence that what the bill says is what the Minister in charge of the bill says it will do. I do think that the suggestion put forward by the Green Party contribution that as there are quite clearly two parts—in the short period of time I have had to look at the contribution from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment there are quite clearly two parts now to the bill. One stops the inappropriate 3.5 percent increase and again we agree with the Green Party contribution with everybody’s contribution that that is inappropriate.However we do not happen to agree with the articulation by the National Party members of the reason why it is inappropriate suddenly—suddenly we are in urgency. I mean there have been 6 years in which the Government could have dealt with this situation. It could have changed the criteria without actually looking like it has hauled the Remuneration Authority in for a good hiding and then sent it on its way. The Government could have dealt with this over the last 6 years as opposed to today.But it is not anything to do—it has got nothing to do—with the global financial crisis. It has more to do with the 40000 members of the Public Service who are about to go into bargaining. It has more to do with the 17000 members in the health sector mostly clerical assistants and public and mental health workers. It has more to do with the 1100 corrections staff 3100 Inland Revenue Department staff and 430 Ministry for Women and Statistics New Zealand staff. It has more to do with the staff at the Artificial Limb Service and the 800 Department of Internal Affairs workers 150 staff from the Blood Service 1650 Ministry of Justice workers 2400 staff from Child Youth and Family 1150 from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and 300 Parliamentary Service workers who are also going to be seeking acknowledgment for their work and what they do and the fact that they deserve a pay rise.We also think the timing is particularly interesting that 2 March was when the Prime Minister made the statement that we were going to be dealing with this now under urgency after 6 years of opportunity—now under urgency—and that a by-election had been called in Northland. We all know that Northland is a place where the majority of the workers—and the majority of the unemployed in the country pretty much sit up in Northland—are also among the most lowly paid inside our nation. So we do not think this has got anything to do with the global financial crisis and constraint from that perspective and that sort of good warm-fuzzy feeling from the Government at all. We think this is a very political move on behalf of the Government. It happens to be the right move; it is just not well done. We will be listening for further contributions from the Government benches as they try to convince us and the nation that the only reason that this is here now under urgency is that the first part must be dealt with under urgency.Again I point to the Green Party contribution around transparency. One of the benefits of the select committee process is the ability for New Zealanders to come in and actually say what they think. I think if there is anything that we should be confident about in this House it is that should the criterion should the purpose should the first part of this bill go to a select committee we should be confident that we can stand in our place and say to the people of New Zealand: “We do this job. We give it our all. We do it for you. And what do you think that is worth? What is that reasonably and honestly and fairly worth?”. If we cannot do that then we have got a larger problem than 3.5 percent. So I think it is very interesting and I will listen very carefully to the rest of the conversation around these issues.I do want to pick up on a point that Ms King said. We are also working on a Supplementary Order Paper because we find it very interesting inside the regulatory impact statement that the bill provides that the authority must fix the salaries of MPs so that they can move up only in line with the movement in the average ordinary time weekly earnings for fulltime-equivalent public sector employees. We would like some clarification around “equivalent public sector employees”—who is that?Hon Michael Woodhouse: It’s defined in the bill.TRACEY MARTIN: Great! The Minister has just said that we will find it in the bill. The fact that we actually had the bill only an hour before question time—thank you so much Minister. It would be nice to actually be able to read it finally.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Barbara had it days ago.TRACEY MARTIN: Not the bill you incorporated into your Supplementary Order Paper Minister but you can keep running that line if you like.We will bring in a Supplementary Order Paper because we are looking at amending the Remuneration Authority Act 1977 to provide a sole criterion for the Remuneration Authority to consider when reviewing the total remuneration of all positions within its jurisdiction. The current bill amends only the salaries for members of Parliament but leaves untouched the remuneration of judges and chief executive officers of local government among others. We see that these occupations also should be considered by this Parliament as to whether they are appropriately in line with the rest of the New Zealanders out there putting in a full day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Our Supplementary Order Paper will address those at that top take level and we believe that it shows leadership. We believe that it would show leadership across the whole of the sector.It was interesting that Mr Farrar David Farrar—he is a well-known leftie I think is he not—has helpfully compared MPs with judges. An MP used to get 73 percent of what a District Court judge gets but today they get just 48 percent. This excludes superannuation subsidies that are far more generous to judges. Then Mr Farrar compared Cabinet Ministers with High Court judges. In 1985 they were paid almost the same. Ministers got $957 more. Today a Cabinet Minister gets just 67 percent of what a High Court judge gets. They get paid almost $150000 less. We are not suggesting that that means we need to go up towards High Court judges; what we are suggesting is that things have got out of kilter.My final contribution about things getting out of kilter would be the fact that in the 1970s the wages of teachers and members of Parliament were similar. In the 1970s the wages of teachers and members of Parliament were similar. Things have got completely out of kilter. We believe that this is an opportunity to bring it back but we are not confident that the Government itself knows what is inside this bill and how it will fold out at the end of the day because it has not taken the time—and it had 6 years to do so—to truly work this through. Kia ora.