Clendon David: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2323. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to be able to speak to this very bad piece of drafted legislation. It is a very disingenuous bill I should say. I think my favourite part of it is in new section 18B(2) which is to be inserted in the Remuneration Authority Act by clause 7. We get this wonderful formula that purports to be an objective formula intended to produce a transparent measurable non-arbitrary outcome. I had the privilege and benefit of studying economics as part of my Master’s programme at Lincoln University. Part of the discovery for me in terms of discovering economics was the extent to which economists rely on what are apparently very complex and convoluted formulae—and indeed they are—but inevitably they rest on a very dodgy basic assumption that is almost inevitably flawed. I think of that when I see this because this formula purports to produce a way of establishing income changes for MPs that is not arbitrary and that is transparent. What it endeavours to disguise is the political opportunism that lies beneath this bill.I have seldom seen a piece of legislation that was such a pure expression of political opportunism. The PM and his cohort saw an opportunity to capture the public outcry—the annual public outcry—following the announcement from the Remuneration Authority that MPs were going to get another pay rise.This cannot have been news to this Government that the public has been unhappy about the way in which MPs are awarded annual pay rises. The Green Party has been ringing this bell for many years and highlighting the importance the necessity of finding a non-arbitrary means a fair and reasonable means of establishing what is appropriate remuneration for MPs. We are absolutely in favour of linking it to something in the real world. The point about this legislation is that it has chosen something more or less at random—in this case Public Service increases or not. That is a defensible proposition. There are many more other defensible propositions and Mr Hipkins touched on this in his contribution earlier. The Greens have put forward our ideas about what we could link it to. I know that the Public Service Association and the public sector unions have offered a solution—something we could link to. I am sure that if the Remuneration Authority itself had the opportunity to speak to a select committee it actually might come up with some pretty sensible ideas about how we could do something better than simply sending the authority away to come up with a number every year having the public outcry and then getting on with business as usual.This is an appalling abuse of parliamentary process. There is no urgency underlying this legislation. It is not news that the public gets unhappy every year. It is not news that the way in which we set MPs’ salary conditions benefits and the like has been a debatable question and a point that has been contested for a very long time. I defy anybody to say that there is genuine urgency to resolve this matter here today.The point has been made several times that we thought we were having this debate a week ago but then with no notice the urgency motion that we expected on I think Wednesday afternoon simply did not eventuate with no information coming to at least two of the parties in this House representing about 20 percent of its membership. We actually did not know what was going to be going on that afternoon because the Leader of the House did not deign to tell us what was going to be going on reflecting the utter confusion of this Government which had this bright idea that it would ride this populist wave by coming out and speaking against the proposed increase in MPs’ salaries but then it suddenly realised that actually it is not as simple as that. You need some smart thinking. You need some information some analysis. You need input from expert authorities organisations and interest groups—it is called a select committee process. It is called a sensible deliberate sober addressing of a problem to come to the best solution.I have to say I have been surprised to hear from our other Opposition parties today a very good critique of this bill. There have been some very accurate and clear critiques of it highlighting its many flaws. Again one speaker—a Labour speaker I think—highlighted the fact that inevitably we will get unexpected outcomes and we will get perverse outcomes because we do not really know what we are signing up for tonight. The point has been made that some people actually trust that the Government has got it near enough right to merit having this bill supported today. We do not think it has got it anywhere near right. We think that given a proper parliamentary process we could probably come to a robust position that would actually endure over time and that would be fit for purpose none of which you could say about this bill.Any legislation that is drafted in a great rush based on an enthusiasm to appeal to populism to the public mood and to have a crack at MPs—and fairly so—is almost inevitably doomed to fail. What is the urgency around this? I would be interested to hear from the Minister what the reason for urgency on this is—the real underlying reason. Yes there was public outcry as there was last year and the year before that and the year before that. Why was a bill to change the process to change the system not brought to the House 3 years ago or 5 years ago by his Government? Why did it wait until there was an outcry—a big media storm about it—and suddenly decide to resort to this very shabby process to make law in the course of 5 or 6 hours that inevitably will deliver suboptimal outcomes?This is a very poor way to make law. The content is weak. It has obviously been thrown together in great haste. The process is appalling. It is anti-democratic and we are pleased and proud to be opposing this abuse of parliamentary time.