Turei Metiria: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2282. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party is opposing this legislation and I will describe why in some detail shortly. We do understand it—and we did consider seriously supporting it—because it does provide a criterion on which the Remuneration Authority can consider MPs’ pay and on that basis it is generally a move in the right direction. It is a publicly available measure that is being used and it could help with transparency with MPs’ pay except of course that the principle is not just that there is a criterion—I mean the Remuneration Authority already has the ability to use criteria for MPs’ pay—but that it is a criterion that constrains MPs’ pay increases. And there is no evidence on the table and I heard nothing in the Minister’s speech—and he may have more evidence to provide us all—to show that this measure will constrain MPs’ pay more than the current provisions provide for.That was our criticism of the previous bill last week—that it did not constrain MPs’ pay increases—and we want to see some evidence that this one will. It is not hard to argue with; it is not a huge issue. If there is evidence we need to be able to see it but there is none and it is very difficult to even do the assessment. We did try to get the Parliamentary Library this morning with the short time we have had to look at the bill to see whether it could calculate it and it is very difficult. And yet we are being asked to support this legislation with no evidence at all that it will actually do the job it is supposed to do. We are not prepared to whitewash this issue. In fact we need to make sure that we have proper criteria that restrain MPs’ pay.The Green Party has put two proposals forward. They will arrive shortly before the House as Supplementary Order Papers. One is where the criteria are based on nominal increases in the median wage which would significantly constrain MPs’ pay increases. That means that if the median wage goes up by a hundred bucks then MPs’ pay goes up by a hundred bucks. It is not percentage-based. The second is based on the labour cost index which is a much better measure than the quarterly employment survey and would also significantly constrain MPs’ pay increases because that is the principle—not just that there are criteria. There are already criteria that the Remuneration Authority uses. So this bill does not provide any meaningful change to what the current situation is so why then would we give it a tick when it does not actually do anything?I am really concerned by what I have heard today so far—we are only halfway through the first reading—about the attitude of MPs to the public. There has been talk about the odium that we all receive as a result of MPs’ pay increases. We do not treat the public fairly in the discussion about MPs’ pay and allowances. We do not make sure that there is an open and transparent system for them to assess the validity of any allowances that we have or the pay increases that we might get or how that pay is set. The Remuneration Authority has been trying to do that a bit better. But to say that MPs get treated with odium and disrespect—and hatred and disgust is what that odium means—is grossly unfair to the public. The public will be pissed off if they think that there is unfairness in our system. It is up to us then to demonstrate that the system is fair and the best way we can do that is not to rush legislation through under urgency because there is a public backlash; it is to have a proper open and transparent system.The Green Party has been arguing now for years and years—it started with Rod Donald—that we should have an independent and full review of MPs’ pay and allowances and ex-MPs’ entitlements and have that fully available for scrutiny by the public so we can have a proper discussion about what it is we need to do our job the kind of job that we have making sure we have the tools to do our job and nothing more. You know—we get paid for the job we do and we have the resources we need to do the job.The public when we have been open and transparent have been really responsive. The Green Party led the transparency move for our accommodation and travel allowances if you remember. We opened up our books and as a result the Speaker then put in a system so that everybody’s travel and accommodation allowances are now known to the public. There were howls of outrage from MPs because they thought that the public would crash in on us from I do not know the gallery and have huge problems with what we were spending. In fact the fact of the transparency gave the public confidence about what we were doing and how we were doing it and it now largely goes unnoticed. We do not need to treat the public with such disrespect and neither should we treat this process with such disrespect.The bill has two parts that I am mostly interested in. The first of course is the criterion which simply does not work to do the job or at least we have got no evidence that it will. The second is that the bill will revoke the Remuneration Authority’s determination of the pay increase. That is what we need to do—revoke that now. We could do that under urgency. It is in the bill. Then we can have a proper process with a select committee and some time to consider what are the best criteria for the Remuneration Authority to use to constrain MPs’ pay. That would do both jobs. We would stop the pay increase now. We could do that this afternoon.Then we would also give ourselves the time to look at what are good criteria for the Remuneration Authority to use and to open it up for public scrutiny so that the public can have a say on what they think the most appropriate criteria should be to use and make sure we have got it right. I absolutely agree with Chris Hipkins and others who have spoken that the chances of us having to come back and fix this are very very high. It has been only a week and a half since the first version of the bill came to Parliament. Then we would know we were doing the right thing for the right reasons and doing a good job. That is what we get paid for. That is what this is all about. If we are going to make law we need to be professional lawmakers and make sure we do a good job and we do not waste time and we do deserve the pay that we will eventually get.But in fact what National and others are showing to the public is that we will be responsive on these issues only when we feel we are under political attack we will not take them seriously as they ought to be taken we will not trust the public to have a say about what our pay and allowances should be and we will be defensive and hurried about it. I think it is very shameful actually what is going on today. It is why we have opposed urgency. It is why we are opposing this bill. It is why we are going to great efforts to find alternatives to put forward to the Parliament so that parliamentarians can consider different criteria and think about what is the best way to proceed. It is why we are going to see whether we can put forward a Supplementary Order Paper that will just revoke the Remuneration Authority’s decision and just that so that we can take time.We will no doubt have some long discussions over the next 24 hours or so about the effect of this bill and the concerns that MPs have about it. I reiterate that I am very much looking forward to the Minister providing the evidence that shows that this constrains MPs’ pay. It may be that the Minister does not intend to constrain MPs’ pay increases but just to set the criteria. If that is the case I think he needs to tell us that. It needs to be made very clear that this is not designed to reduce pay increases; it is designed only to put a criterion in place. I do not agree with that but at least it would be more up front about what we are trying to do and we are being more up front with the public about the results of this bill. I think that is where in this whole process Parliament is really falling down today. It is treating members of the public with such high levels of disrespect. They deserve better from us. Thank you.