Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): It has been a long-held a deeply held a sincerely held desire of mine over a number of years in this Parliament to speak on a remuneration bill. So tonight is a special night. In that regard I suppose I do tick something off my bucket list and it is really good to do that. I just want to commend the Minister Stuart Nash. I know this is not his bill; it is the Hon Sir Aupito William Sio's bill. But clearly Minister Nash put a lot of time into that speech. He thought a lot about the issues. So I just want to say that we appreciate that on this side of the House the sort of attention that Ministers like Minister Nash give. I know he has got a lot going on. He is on Hosking tomorrow morning. It is a big time for him. But we appreciate that. I also accept what he says and I'm sure there will be a lot of submissions on this bill because there is so much in it.This is an omnibus bill and of course not all omnibus matters are correct or are appropriate. That is where there are disparate laws that are being changed as a result of one bill. They either are or they aren't in line with the Standing Orders in Standing Order 267(1)(a) in particular. But here of course for the reasons that Minister Nash has outlined that is because there is an overarching theme here of transferring responsibility for remuneration determination for these various disparate quasi-judicial roles and statutory officers to the Remuneration Authority—well then an omnibus bill is appropriate and is within the Standing Orders. The reason of course that we are able to do that and that National will support this bill is that it is right—in light of the judicial roles the statutory functions that these various officers and quasi-judicial roles have—that they are removed that they are independent and that they are paid bluntly. That is their remuneration their conditions that go with the pay are removed from this place from Parliament from the executive and from anything that might be influenced by this place. In the list of those offices that are affected by this bill and will be one step or distanced—appropriately—from this place and the executive are the chair and deputy chairpersons of the Human Rights Review Tribunal community magistrates of the District Court environment commissioners and deputy environment commissioners of the Environment Court members and deputy chairs of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal referees of the disputes tribunal and tenancy adjudicators of the Tenancy Tribunal. In inflationary times I might say—and I'm not seeking to be unduly flippant on this bill—but these various offices I would have thought might be somewhat glad to be removed from the hurly-burly of this.MPs are expected to don sack cloth and walk around the streets yelling Unclean unclean." and begging not to be paid more. Whereas here actually we've got a bill that makes quite clear they may not be paid less—any Remuneration Authority determination that is to happen every year can only be the same or more. That is appropriate.I would though and I do again I suppose not so subtly note the quite clear contrast to members of Parliament. I well remember in Cabinet and in Government the situations where Remuneration Authority chairs would come and would be—I shouldn't say "come" but by correspondence—making quite clear that they thought in terms of the context and what others in similar positions were being paid and so on we should be getting pay rises. Clearly in political terms given the environment we are in that wasn't deemed appropriate and we'd be in no uncertain terms going back and saying "No. Don't put our terms our conditions our salaries and the various other matters that make remuneration up." So that is the difference with this place.And I think again perhaps not so subtly what that means is that with our accountability in this place to the people with election cycles and so on we have the right to play politics to do politics and to speak politically in a way that those who are also in the broader sense part of the Government but in judicial and quasi-judicial positions don't. And they get that distanced independent Remuneration Authority process in terms of the ongoing surety and ratcheting up of their remuneration.We do support this bill. It is right that these are independent. I'm sure it will be an interesting select committee process that Mr Nash and I can both watch with that great interest."