Clendon David: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2331. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): I just wanted to briefly make a couple of further points firstly about the commencement which of course is the day after a procedural assent etc. but in fact this is retrospective legislation. The effect of this legislation is to take us back to a day or a week before the Remuneration Authority fulfilled its mandate to come up with a proposal about an increase or a change in MPs’ salaries and to pretend that never happened.We generally are very suspicious of retrospective legislation. I am not blind to the fact that our third-choice Supplementary Order Paper—I think—also suggests a retrospective move to basically overturn the decision that was made. But not then to endeavour in the course of a week to cobble together in haste an inadequate substitute for that decision-making process which flawed as it may be—and we do agree absolutely that is has been flawed for a very long time. We wonder why the Government has not taken steps if it is genuinely concerned that that process of setting remuneration is flawed. Why has it waited until this moment to shove through a bill in the course of a few hours on a Tuesday afternoon? I do think that that is a point that we have yet to hear an answer from the Minister about. What is the basis of the rationale or the excuse for urgency?The other point I would like to comment on again is that the bill talks about a 12-month cycle. If we had the luxury of a proper parliamentary process if we could take advice from elsewhere and listen to submissions we might hear an argument—and it has been put before—that ought we not perhaps put this on a 36-month cycle rather than a 12-month cycle so that MPs come into this House at each election knowing roughly what their income their package of benefits and so on is going to be for the next 3 years? I would argue that might take some of the heat out of the public objection. At least it would be 3-yearly rather than an annual circus. I would suggest that if we do benchmark MPs’ salary movements to some average then you have got a 3-year average rather than a 12-month one which I think would make it more robust potentially more reliable and longer lasting.Again these are symptoms of something that has been cobbled together in great haste without adequate thought and without drawing on the undoubted expertise that is available in the communities of interest—be they specialised or simply the members of the public who might want to have a say. I wonder whether part of the Government’s determination to have this done and dusted in a few hours on a Tuesday is because it is unwilling to expose itself to the public to public input because undoubtedly a select committee looking at some alternative proposition would take the opportunity to have a crack at MPs. You would hear a lot of opinion a lot of rhetoric undoubtedly and that is fair comment. Maybe we ought to simply expose ourselves to that have a proper process and think about things like whether we should look at a 3-year rather than a 12-month cycle and whether we ought not underline the public outcry about MP remuneration. Should we not stop and think to ourselves: “Why is it that the public objects so strongly to MPs getting paid a bit more?”Maybe it is something to do with the behaviour that is routinely displayed in this House not least of all at question time—the yelling the shouting the behaviour that ought not be accepted in a third-form English class in any college on a given afternoon. Perhaps we need to look a bit more closely at ourselves our own behaviours and our own practices for an explanation of why the public does get so very angry when they see MPs apparently getting an increase in pay. I think—to channel our former colleague Mr Robertson—that maybe we need to think again about a code of conduct for this House. Maybe if the public saw us behaving in a way befitting members of this Chamber more often and more routinely maybe some of the heat would go out of this debate and it would become more rational more focused and a little bit more objective than it currently is. Thank you.