Turei Metiria: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14582. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): We have some amendments to Part 3 but they are essentially to the same effect as the amendment I described earlier which is to re-include the travel of MPs in the determinations that are made by the Remuneration Authority rather than leaving that with the Speaker. I understand Chris Hipkins’ view and there is potentially some logic to it. The other view is that if we in Parliament are to treat travel services as a critical tool for the purposes of doing our job then I think the other option is that they remain with the Speaker as will be the case if this bill passes as it is at the moment. They remain with the Speaker but that is for parliamentary purpose only. Just as when we sign off our budgets and the various things that we have to do every month for the parliamentary spending that we do we have to sign a little piece of paper that says: “This spending is for parliamentary purpose.” We do—you know everybody has to do it. In having to do that we are having to make a genuine declaration that this travel is for parliamentary purpose. But the problem with travel is that we are entitled to use it for personal reasons. That is it. That is—Chris Hipkins: So if an MP flies home to attend to a sick child is that a parliamentary purpose?METIRIA TUREI: Well there is a question there. I agree Mr Hipkins and it might be that the right to travel from where you are for your work to your home is considered to be part of your parliamentary purpose given that you are entitled to get back to your house right? So we might have to look at how the parliamentary purpose reflects the nature of the job. MPs have to move from their home to Parliament and from their home to some other place to do some work and back to their home. That is not unreasonable for us to have that conversation but the issue is—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.METIRIA TUREI: If anybody is curious as to why I have this lovely young thing standing next to me her name is Jellybean Harakeke. She is part of the Buddy Day campaign that is being run by Child Matters over the next week. The campaign encourages adults to adopt a buddy to carry the buddy around with us and to encourage conversations about how adults can prevent child abuse and engage in real solutions to prevent child abuse. That is why I have my buddy Jellybean Harakeke with me today.Before the dinner break I was just responding to issues raised by Chris Hipkins about the travel allowances part of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. He was suggesting that in the current system whereby MPs have access to travel for our work we are also able to use travel allowances for personal reasons as well. He was suggesting that part of the trade-off is that the Remuneration Authority assesses the value of that personal use and then in determining our salaries takes away—subtracts from the final determination—the value of that personal use.That is one way of doing it and it is the way that it has been done. The Green Party’s view is that it is not the most transparent way. It is not the most straightforward way. In fact a better way would be for the travel allowance to be for parliamentary purpose only. Yes that would require some understanding or rule-setting around what “parliamentary purpose” means. For example—and Chris Hipkins raised the issue—what would happenif an MP was away from town away from home on parliamentary business and needed to get home? Well one could reasonably argue that the travel itself is for a parliamentary purpose and therefore it is reasonable for the travel home to be included in that purpose. That would have to be a discussion.My argument here is that if travel is to remain with the Speaker as the bill currently sets out and because travel is considered to be an essential tool for MPs to operate in our job—like our laptops like our office furniture or whatever other kinds of tools you may want to consider—then there is an argument that that tool should be restricted for parliamentary purpose. That would take away then the perception that the public might have—and I think they do have actually—that MPs want to retain control over the travel allowances because they want to retain the ability to travel for personal reasons as well as parliamentary purpose.So what is the trade-off here? One trade-off we could have is to agree that travel stays with the Speaker but is restricted and is not available for MPs to use for personal travel. We have not had that conversation yet. This is another one of those issues that remain unresolved. The issue is unresolved—that is whether travel should be restricted to parliamentary purpose only with no provision for personal use—because we have not discussed that. That has not been a matter that MPs have wanted to discuss in the Parliamentary Service Commission and elsewhere even though it is an issue that has been raised by the Law Commission the Appropriations Review Committee and in other areas. The Greens’ view is that the travel should also then move to the Remuneration Authority.It is therefore critical for an independent agency to set the travel rules. We actually cannot have it both ways where we get to decide our own travel allowance and we get to keep—or decide to keep—the personal component of that travel allowance. I do not think the public believe that that is the right thing to do. I do not believe that the public should be mistrusted by MPs either. I think we can trust the public to have a reasonable view about the tools that we need to do our jobs and to have a reasonable view about the travel that we need to do our jobs. Some people will always complain about the resources that we use. But again in my experience of travelling around the country and talking to people about these issues the vast majority of people understand that we need to use our travel allowance to get around. They understand and they want us to be able to get out to a variety of areas and talk to a variety of communities. They want to see and hear their representatives from a wide range of parties and over a wide range of issues.They do not in the main believe that we are intentionally trying to maintain our own personal benefit to the extent that perhaps the media makes out sometimes but the public want to be trusted to hold that view. One of the ways that we can demonstrate that trust is to give over the authority to make these decisions ourselves. It does us no harm. It does us only good if we agree that the public can be trusted to hold our interests at heart; that the independent authority can be trusted to make a reasonable decision about the allowances that we need to do our work.Therefore at the end of the day all of this takes the political heat out. We do not end up with the kind of front-page news stories that we currently have. The more transparent we are the more information that we provide and the less we hold on to the authority to make decisions about these things ourselves the more the public will then agree with what it is that we need to do our jobs and trust us to do them with their interests at heart.So I urge MPs to vote for Supplementary Order Paper 369 that I have on the Table which again reinstates travel services as being a determination of the Remuneration Authority. I think that is a positive move. It is a practical move. It is a principled move. It gives confidence to the public that we are not here to further our own interests that we arenot here simply to improve our own personal financial wealth but we are here to serve the public and to use public resources in a way that is wise and transparent. Thank you.