Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to ask the member some more questions around this issue of remuneration and the Māori constituencies. In clause 10A(4) it says The Council must make the payments required … even if doing so exceeds any total amount payable to elected members of the Council determined by the Remuneration Authority." At the Māori Affairs Committee we heard from the chair of the Remuneration Authority the Hon Dame Fran Wilde who said that the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill had been designed with respect to the remuneration of the two new proposed appointed positions on the council. She said the bill is designed to protect the remuneration of elected members of the Canterbury Regional Council and she made the point that it's already the highest-paid regional council in New Zealand and it would put that council in a privileged position that would be unfair to all other councils in the country.She noted that if every council put in a member's bill like this one that's before the House today it would unwind the whole process of having an independent decision on remuneration and would undermine the integrity of the Remuneration Authority. Why is it important to have an independent Remuneration Authority? Well she's outlined its role: it is to set the remuneration of all members of Parliament all other elected officials including councillors judges and other key officeholders including the Police Commissioner. Its independence is crucial to guarding against rates of pay being subject to political interference which is an anti-corruption measure that has worked well in keeping New Zealand clean compared to other countries.She dismissed remarks made earlier to the select committee by the chair of the Canterbury Regional Council that the Remuneration Authority's governance pool had set up a barrier preventing councils making decisions on Māori constituencies which I note is still available to the council in clause 13 of the present bill. The chair of the Remuneration Authority said that this was demonstrably untrue and pointed to examples of how other councils had already done it—i.e. put in place Māori constituencies. She emphasised that in her view this bill's remuneration clause had been designed to protect the financial position of elected members. She said Environment Canterbury was using it to circumvent the authority's rules basically wanting to have it both ways: have two extra members that are identical in every way to all other members which she said in her view is how it should be but who are somehow ring-fenced when it comes to deciding the council's remuneration.So my question is to the member: why is this appropriate? Why should every other regional council in the country and every other council in the country have different rules but Environment Canterbury—which is the highest-paid regional council in the country—have an extra special provision enabling them to exceed the remuneration pool when they can already establish Māori constituencies? Why do they have to appoint two members and also have the option to establish Māori constituencies when this is different from every other council in the country?"