King Annette: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:634. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.Hon ANNETTE KING (Acting Deputy Leader—Labour)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.Hon Annette King: In the Speech from the Throne he stated that his Government’s plan includes higher incomes for New Zealanders. What percentage wage movement does he envisage would be fair for hard-working Kiwis over the next 3 years?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: One that is in excess of the inflation rate.Hon Annette King: In light of that does he think an increase of 70 percent a year would be fair because pay rises of this magnitude have recently been described by the Minister of Finance as just market corrections?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I assume the member is talking about some of the pay increases that chief executives at mixed-ownership model companies have received. I do not know the composition and make-up of their pay but I suspect that in fact what has really happened is they have not had a 70 percent increase in their salary; they have probably had a combination of stock options and other parts of their payment and also an incentive payment reflecting the performance of the company. Actually you do get those kinds of moves—both up and down—with chief executives but that is not something that goes in terms of just their straight salary increase.Hon Annette King: How does the Government justify a pay increase of 70 percent or $900000 for the chief executive officer of Mighty River Power as just a market correction but a $2 an hour increase of the minimum wage paid to the lowest-paid New Zealanders as unaffordable?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Government does not justify it because the justification is required by the board of directors and the chairman of the company. Actually I have not done this exercise but if members opposite want me to I will go away and have a look at the incentive payments made to other chief executives under the previous Labour Government. I am pretty sure you will find that when Meridian Energy was run by Keith Turner 16 percent of the company was sold in the form of Southern Hydro and there were proceeds of $1.5 billion and a $600000 million profit. I may be wrong but I am pretty sure that Keith Turner got a tidy little bonus for doing that.Hon Annette King: Does he stand by his statement: “We’d prefer that we were a more equal society with less inequality.”? If he stands by that what will he do to ensure that the 43 percent of workers who did not receive a pay increase in the last year get even a fraction of a 70 percent pay increase that the Mighty River Power chief executive officer got last year?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes and I honestly thought we had dispatched that ridiculous argument when we dispatched David Cunliffe. If we want to go back and have that argument again the member will know that what she is talking about—unless she is just reading out what the research unit gave her—is the labour cost index. She will know the labour cost index is not a measurement of the way the salaries are adjusted. She will know because I am sure she researched it then that it was absolutely identical under the 9 years of the Labour Government and that 40-odd percent of people under the labour cost index did not get a change in their salary.Hon Annette King: Well answer this Prime Minister: how will a home-care worker on $15.20 an hour go about getting a market correction in their pay packet when it is the Government that provides the funding through Vote Health and has refused to increase the health budget to meet cost pressures as outlined in the Treasury papers released recently?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is defeating her own argument because this Government has increased the health budget every single year we have been in office.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table Treasury papers showing that it only made a contribution towards cost pressures in health.Mr SPEAKER: I am going to let the House decide. I am not sure it will add great information to members but the House can decide. Leave has been sought to table some Treasury papers. Is there any objection? There is none. They can be tabled.Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House.