Dyson Ruth: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14569. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Thanks very much for the opportunity to take a call on Part 1 of the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill. I know that a number of people around the country and perhaps even within our own precincts in the parliamentary press gallery have been getting a little excited about this bill thinking that it reverts to Parliament setting the salaries of members of Parliament. Actually it does not. The fundamental point is outlined in Part 1—what the preliminary provisions are and the overview of the bill. The point of this bill is to ensure that the provisions for support services that are required by members of Parliament to properly fulfil their functions are made in a way that is transparent and that is fair to members of Parliament and the staff but also obviously to the people who fund them the public of New Zealand.But it is also to ensure an additional point—and it is one that has been highlighted in the House quite recently but also in previous terms of our Parliament—which is that where members of Parliament have an impairment the support services that they require in order for them to fulfil their duties are different from those of other members of Parliament. So I am really pleased that as part of the provisions in this legislation we have ensured that quite rightly the law will now clarify beyond any doubt that the support for members of Parliament who have a physical or a sensory impairment is properly the responsibility of the House and not of the political party that that person happens to be representing.The bill comes about through the work of the original drafting of the legislation and the responsible Minister the Prime Minister as well as the work that the Government Administration Committee was able to do on a very politically neutral basis. We had a lot of debate between submitters and we had a lot of debate between the committee members but on this particular issue there was pretty rapid unanimous agreement that it is proper that support for all members of Parliament whether they have different support needs or not should be the responsibility of Parliament. We hope that this sends a really clear message to disabled members of our community who in the past may have been put off from being members of our Parliament because of feeling as though they might have some spotlight shone on them and feeling that they might not be able to perform their duties in the way that they would want to as an elected representative. I am very pleased with that particular clarity that is now in the legislation which I presume we are going to pass in a little while.The contentious issue that I just want to raise right at the outset of this debate because it is relevant to the very purpose of it and is one on which we got differentopinions from submitters is who would make the determination of the travel allowance for members of Parliament—whether that was a matter for the Remuneration Authority or whether it was a matter for the Speaker. The committee was persuaded in the end that for members of Parliament but not for their family members the ability to travel to Wellington every week when Parliament is sitting when they have select committee meetings in Wellington or elsewhere and where they might have a Cabinet meeting is actually a fundamental part of the responsibility—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is in one of the other parts of the bill not in Part 1.Hon RUTH DYSON: I will refer to that later. I am just saying that because the primary purpose was not to determine as I explained at the beginning our rate of pay. Part of the contentious debate was about who determined that travel allowance. The committee decided that it would be the responsibility of the Speaker because travel is part of the job of a member of Parliament. Regardless of whether we are in the backbench or in Cabinet all of us are required to travel as part of our job. I think the Hon Annette King and Grant Robertson would probably be the only two members of this House who would consider that it is a perk to come to Wellington. The rest of us consider that it is just part of our responsibility that it is part of our job. Of course it is a real pleasure to fly into Wellington every week and leave our homes and electorates behind but it is actually a fundamental part of the job and that is why we decided that it was appropriate for the Speaker to maintain that determination.