Auchinvole Chris: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAuchinvole Chris: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14573. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I would like to rise to take a call to put into context the speech of not the member who has just spoken but the one before that Metiria Turei. But first I recognise the previous speaker Darien Fenton. I would agree that the Government Administration Committee meeting was well chaired. The work that it did was particularly well researched and well prepared. We were remarkably well served by all the officials and we had a fair number of them. This bill the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill involves a very central part of the work we do and so we did have the opportunity to be well advised by a range of very very experienced officials.There are two stages of consultation for a bill passing through the House. I know from those times when I have been at the Australasian and other Commonwealth meetings that they ask how we manage with having just one House. The way we do it of course is to have a very significant part of consultation with the public going through the select committee submissions and considerations. It is a very very important part of a bill’s progress. Full participation during the select committee process is available to any member of Parliament and to every party. All parties in the select committee process are given the opportunity to be fully involved.I note that the Hon Trevor Mallard was very critical of the introduction by the Green Party of a Supplementary Order Paper that effectively assumes one could say a holier-than-thou virtuous amongst all never really wanted to agree attitude. I personally find that a disappointment and an unnecessary intrusion into an otherwise very hard-worked process. I am put in mind of someone who is deliberately rude in public and then apologetic in private. This is a sort of reverse process. The public we have been told expect transparency as if the committee process has not provided it. We most certainly did. But the public expects not just transparency in the end result and in the public process but also deliberation and consideration to be conducted with integrity and with ethics—all of those parts of the bill that are held in the committee consideration.For a party to suddenly change its mind coincidentally when there was some criticism in the media of the result of the changes that the select committee recommended—I noted that the Green Party was singled out as having not fronted up; so there was a sudden change in their view—does not reflect well on the parliamentary process and I think parties should do better than that. I think there is a problem. Where you have a party that constantly votes against everything thereby claiming for itself a particular position in parliamentary process the reality of that is that it is doing so only because it knows that the legislation is going to pass anyway. That is the only way parties can protect themselves. I would suggest that for a party that has no electoral seats for a party that considers itself a future partner in Government it needs to really consider the current standpoint that it is using. Thank you.