Hipkins Chris: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 14 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14721. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): That is what my mother called me normally when I had been very poorly behaved.I do have to disagree with something that Chris Auchinvole said when he said that he was delighted to speak on the third reading of this bill the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. I do not feel quite the same level of joy. It would befair to say that there is not a huge number of MPs queuing up to speak on this particular topic because there is a fair degree of public cynicism I think when it comes to MPs talking about their own pay and rations if you like. I think potentially that if you look at the situation historically often with some good reason the public would look on us debating these matters and talking about how hard we work and how we need this and how we need that with a degree of cynicism.I think that if you look back over the history of this debate sometimes it has actually been fair and justified. I think that is absolutely right. I think that over time MPs have if you like responded to the public pressure and public criticism of those matters and have put in place steps to ensure that there is a degree of independence in how many of these issues are decided. We do not vote on our own salaries contrary I think to what many in the public would think. We do not determine our own salaries. We actually get very little say in how much we get paid. I do want to say however that I love being a member of Parliament. I feel incredibly privileged to have the honour of being a member of Parliament. I certainly do not think I am poorly recompensed for being a member of Parliament. All I ask for is that we are given the tools we need to do the job we are put here to do by the voters of New Zealand and that we are able to do that job effectively.I do not expect to get rich by being a member of Parliament but nor do I want to see a situation evolve where you have to be rich in order to become a member of Parliament. I think it is very very important that in this House of Representatives we do have a genuinely representative Parliament. I think that if we sort of erode a lot of the support that is available to members of Parliament to the extent that many in the public would like to see happen we will create a situation where somebody needs to be independently wealthy and able to support themselves before they can actually function effectively as a member of Parliament and a representative of the people. I would hate to see Parliament become that way. I do not expect to become hugely wealthy by being an MP but nor do I think I should have to go out and become wealthy before I can come here and represent the people who elect me.I think there have been some really important aspects to this debate that I do not want to overlook. Metiria Turei is here and I am sure she is going to be speaking after me. One of the points that Metiria Turei raised in the debate in the Committee stage earlier in the week was the need to distinguish between what is of personal benefit to members of Parliament and what is a work-related expense. In principle I want to say that I absolutely do agree with that. The reality though is that it is quite difficult in many instances to determine that particularly when it comes to travel. On the issue of accommodation and on the issue of salary where there is personal benefit that has been removed from parliamentarians’ hands and given to the Remuneration Authority which is independent and I think that is the right thing to do.The issue of travel is very difficult because members of Parliament travel not just to and from Parliament but to and from their homes to other parts of the country for work-related reasons and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish what is work-related travel and what is personal travel. For example—I will give a nice easy one—a member of Parliament from Auckland flies to Wellington each week to be here as a parliamentarian and to be in the House. From time to time members of Parliament will need to go home during the week for family-related reasons. Is that personal travel or is that work-related travel? They are here for work but they have to return home for personal reasons. How would we classify that? If someone is at the other end of the country—say in Dunedin—on work-related business and then they might have a gap of a day where they go back home and then they return to Dunedin 2 days later to do some other work-related thing is that work-related travel or is that personal travel? They are returning to their home for personal reasons.It is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between what is work related and what is personal when it comes to travel. In many many other things it is very easy to distinguish. When it comes to our salaries it is a personal benefit. That is what we get paid back for the jobs we do.Tim Macindoe: I hope it’s work related.CHRIS HIPKINS: Well we are earning it but there is an element of personal benefit in earning money. I do not think anyone would disagree with that. So I think that it is fair that that be determined independently of us but I think that in the case of travel that can be quite difficult.The other thing about travel is that I agree with transparency in so far as MPs’ travel costs are concerned but I think we need to be careful about the extent to which we take that. I think that the transparency we have around travel now has already changed behaviour probably to what it was before I ever became an MP. I have been an MP for only 5 years. I think that prior to that MPs could have free unfettered travel anywhere around the country. There was no transparency and accountability around that. Now the total amount that MPs spend on travel each year is disclosed. I think that is probably the appropriate level for disclosure.If we got into the situation where every individual flight or every individual taxi fare had to be disclosed we would quickly find ourselves in the position where members of Parliament would become less accessible to the public because every individual visit a member of Parliament did would have to be justified publicly one at a time. People would stop doing things because they would not want to disclose the individual details of all the things they were doing. I think that would be unfortunate. So I think the disclosure level we have got now where we are disclosing how much is spent on travel is the appropriate level and it does encourage members of Parliament to be as efficient as possible in making their travel arrangements. I think we have got that balance about right.The other thing I also want to make clear is the safeguards that have been built in to this legislation for the taxpayer. If any one of the things that takes place under this bill does amount to a personal benefit to members of Parliament then the Remuneration Authority must take that into consideration in determining the salaries of members of Parliament. Basically what it says is that if parliamentarians appropriate for themselves something that has a personal benefit then the Remuneration Authority will take that personal benefit into account and offset that against the salary and the salary will be deducted accordingly. So it is a safeguard to stop—I am sure it would not happen in this Parliament—any future Parliaments from basically awarding themselves some personal benefit in addition to their salary because it will be offset against their salary. I think that is a good safeguard for the taxpayer to know that there are protections in place to stop that sort of thing from happening.There are a few things in this bill that I think are welcome and overdue and normally I guess in any other place would just be dealt with by an employer. But here because of the unusual employment relationships we have we do have to have legislation. The “AWOL” clause as I refer to it has been mentioned several times—members of Parliament being absent without leave for a period of time. There have been very few provisions that have been able to discourage that behaviour and penalise that behaviour and this bill deals with that. I mentioned my solution to that in the Committee stage of this debate which is that I believe speaking as a former whip that some form of microchipping or ankle bracelets would be an appropriate monitoring mechanism to ensure that members of Parliament were doing—electrified ankle bracelets would beeven better to incentivise the appropriate behaviour by members of Parliament. But I have yet to have widespread support for that idea from my colleagues unfortunately.I also believe that in the cases where members of Parliament are suspended from the House their salaries should be docked. I want to be clear though that that does not mean that they get turfed out of the Chamber for naughty behaviour and they go back to their offices and continue working. Suspension from Parliament means they are named and being named means there has to be a vote in the House. It happens rarely but I think it is important that when it happens there is some consequence for that because that encourages MPs to lift their behaviour and to avoid getting named by the Speaker. Now there is provision in this legislation to ensure that their salaries will be deducted accordingly if they find themselves in that position.The final clause that I want to mention which I think is long overdue is the ability now in this legislation to cancel under certain circumstances the travel and other entitlements for former members of Parliament. There is a lot of public disquiet about the fact that former members of Parliament actually get travel entitlements once they cease being members of Parliament. Again I want to make it clear that that has changed. The world has changed. It relates only to an ever-diminishing group of members of Parliament. Anyone who came in after 1996 I think it was does not qualify for that any more. We do not have the gold-plated superannuation scheme that they used to have. A lot of those things have gone now. There is a lot more transparency about it and I think that that is a welcome thing.This bill is a step in the right direction. I think we will continue to evolve continue to increase the level of transparency and accountability that members of Parliament have around these matters and I think that that is a very positive thing.