Fox Marama: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFox Marama: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2330. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): I just wanted to rise and take a call on this at this stage because I wanted to assure the New Zealand public who are watching—because this is far more riveting than The Bachelor New Zealand—that in fact we have considered Supplementary Order Papers 57 58 and 59 that the Green Party has put forward and discussed them in the length of time that we have been given to discuss them at length and come up with what we think are our answers to this. The Greens have suggested in Supplementary Order Paper 57 that the median wage be the determining factor for whether we go up or go down. If the median wage goes up $100 then our MPs’ wages go up $100. Essentially the idea is not a bad one but there is just not the time in the shortened period that we have had to look at it to put enough detail around that and what about this what about that and what other factors might then impact on that.In a different Supplementary Order Paper they have suggested attaching MPs’ wages to the two indexes the quarterly employment survey and the labour cost index. The quarterly employment survey is based on actual real people. In fact if we look at it consistently we also have the paid parental funding and the superannuation determined by the quarterly employment survey and it is about actual people. We actually think that that is OK. The labour cost index is about wage inflation and it is done on a statistical theoretical basis so we are happy to support the Supplementary Order Paper which talks about the quarterly employment survey. This is because I am an expert in these fields and I have taken all the due consideration of the time given to us to consider this. We have rung people. We have gone out to our constituents. We have discussed it. We have tried to do what we need to do to ensure that we are supporting something that we can hand on heart say that we think this is what we should support given the circumstances that we are in.According to the Remuneration Authority apparently the Remuneration Authority could not use its discretion because of a piece of legislation that talked about equality. If we talked about setting our wages at the same level as people who work in a similar area across the public and private sectors then MPs’ wages would go up and that is what it determined. There was no appetite for that and that is why we are here having this conversation under urgency. The whole country stood up and said: “Please do not do this. That is ridiculous.” The reason they did it is because we do not give the same urgency to low incomes the minimum wage and the levels of benefit which need to have some urgency applied to them. That is why our people are living in poverty and we need to adjust that.I want to assure the public that we have considered the Supplementary Order Papers that the Greens have put forward. I want to thank the Greens for putting them forward because at least they have given us some options to look at. In this stage we think that we are happy with the legislation that has been put forward as it stands given the short period of time. We would have liked some more time. We would have liked the opportunity for the public to have submissions around this. Given the circumstances we are happy to support it. Thank you.