Hipkins Chris: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 12 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14580. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Again I will make my contribution on Part 3 relatively brief. I guess the first point that I would like to make in reading through Part 3 and particularly clause 17—actually most of the clauses have it in them—is on the use of the word “entitlement”. I think that if I was writing the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill from scratch I would avoid the use of the word “entitlement” because I think the public quite rightly get upset about that andwhat we are actually talking about are business-related expenses. These are the expenses that members of Parliament incur in order to be representatives of the people—to do the job that we are sent here to do. So we are talking about travel to get to and from Parliament and to get around the country in order to be able to see people and represent them and accommodation for those people when they are travelling around the country and when they are here in Wellington. They are work-related expenses.I particularly want to draw the attention of the Committee and of those members of the public who are listening to clause 17(1)(b) because I think that there is a lot of public misunderstanding around the personal benefits from the job-related expenses that we get. What clause 17(1)(b) does is basically say that if there is a personal benefit arising from any of the expenses that are covered through our parliamentary activities that will be taken into consideration by the Remuneration Authority when our salaries are determined. In other words if through this legislation or through any determinations issued by the Speaker or the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services or through the Remuneration Authority we end up with things that we personally benefit from we will effectively end up being paid less as a result of that. So there is a safeguard in there for the taxpayer that none of the decision makers in this legislation can do things that will give members of Parliament a personal benefit without there being some offset against the salaries that we receive and I think that that is quite right. I think that that is a very legitimate expectation. It adheres to the principles that are set out in the Act about being fair to the taxpayer—which I think is very very important—about there being transparency and about the need for public understanding of the work that members of Parliament do. I think that those things are relatively well safeguarded in here.If I was writing this bill from scratch I would do it differently and again I think one of the things that I would say is that I would try to avoid the use of the term “entitlement” because I think that that sends all of the wrong messages around what we are trying to do. What we need to do here and what this legislation aims to do is ensure that members of Parliament can be effective advocates for the people who vote for us who send us here to Parliament. So that involves our need to be able to be here in Wellington. I am one of the members who can speak with no conflict here. I do not get any Wellington accommodation allowance. I do not have any interest in that whatsoever. But I absolutely accept that members of Parliament who do not live in Wellington should have that. They should be able to stay here. They should be able to find accommodation arrangements that are appropriate for them and that should be covered because I do not see how they could possibly do their jobs as members of Parliament without it.I also benefit probably less from or have less reason to be concerned about the travel sections of this bill too because again I am a Wellington member of Parliament. I drive home every day so I stay at my house. I do not fly as much as other members do but I absolutely defend the rights of members of Parliament when it comes to their air travel as well. I think it is very important that members of Parliament have the flexibility to travel to and from their constituencies using air travel and have the flexibility to travel around the country to attend to other things. Although I am an absolute advocate for transparency one of the things that would concern me greatly is the idea that members of Parliament would stop travelling and stop making themselves available to the voting public to the general public because of potential perceptions and risks. So if every time a member of Parliament agrees to travel somewhere and thinks that they will have to justify that very trip and justify that individual airfare then the result of that would be that members of Parliament will attend fewer events and will become less accessible to members of the public. Again I say this as someone who probably has less reason to call on these services than others because I live in Wellington.I absolutely think it is important that we have transparency to the point that is necessary for the public to be assured that the system is not being abused and that members of Parliament are not claiming and personally benefiting from things that they should not be but I also absolutely think that it is important that members of Parliament have the freedom to travel around the country when necessary to do the job that the New Zealand public require us to do.