Kerre Woodham: When is the right time to give MPs a pay rise?

Happy International Workers Day to all the labourers and workers out there. All right, brother. All right, sister. Dedicated to recognizing the contributions and achievements of workers worldwide and taking the opportunity to promote workers rights and opportunities so. Go us, all of us paid grunts.  

MPs, would you consider them paid grunts? Not really public servants, sure, and reasonably well-paid public servants. Too much? Well, who decides that? The remuneration authority, that's who. A very good idea to leave the setting of certain public servants pay to an independent authority. And let's face it, it is never a right time for MPs to be accepting pay rises, they're on a hiding to nothing. Particularly tough, though, when the government has been calling for financial restraint when it's been calling for cost cutting in every government department. At a time when hundreds, if not thousands, of workers are being made redundant, you get the remuneration authority saying ‘look time for a pay rise for MPs.’ On a sliding scale, depending on what job you do. It doesn't matter that many of those who were sucking off the public tit shouldn't have been there anyway. That hiring spree in the last six months of ‘23 was an outrage. Redundancies are punishing and create uncertain times for those on the receiving end of a ‘don't come Monday’.  

The Remuneration Authority has announced pay rises backdated to October 2023 and coming in tranches through to 2026. It will be the first increase to MPs salaries since 2017 and the first major overview of the remuneration package since in about 20 years. The Prime Minister's salary will rise by almost $50,000 over six years, from $471k to $520k. Which you know, if you're the CEO of a big company, as he likes to see it, or if you're the Prime Minister, you probably wouldn't begrudge. 

I don't think people begrudge the big money for the big job. It's when you look at some of the backbenchers from numerous parties that you start to get a little sniffy and a little bit, what about me-ism starts to creep in. The Prime Minister has said he'll donate the extra to charity, as has become almost customary.  

So, what to do? What to do?  

Now we can all say they don't deserve it, but that's not true. Some of them do deserve the money they get, be they a backbencher from any party, be they a minister, be they a leader of an opposition party, some of them work hard for the money. They understand the concept of public servant. They are there to do their best for their constituents, for their party, for the country. Some of them are underpaid. Others would be overpaid if they were on the dole.   

So, what do you do? Would you do the job for the money? I heard the man from the Remunerations Authority saying, look, it's a matter of looking at what similar jobs pay in the private sector. It's a matter of attracting people to do the job and it's a matter of retention. Now, I know you've got to look for comparisons, but when it's attracting people to the job, you wouldn't do it for the money, would you? When you look at the hours they work, the scrutiny they're under, the pressure they're under, the meetings they have to sit through, the numpties they have to listen to. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't be in a backbench MP. Not for the money. I might do it if I thought I could add something and help create a New Zealand that's fair and just in the way I want to see it, but I certainly wouldn't do it for the money.  

As for retention, quite frankly that's not up to a wage band, that's up to a voter. If you're doing a good job, you'll be retained. The voters will vote you back in. It's got nothing to do with the money. 

So, when it comes to the backbenches, some of them are overpaid, massively, given what they do, others are underpaid. If you look at the work of the ministers, I think it's too soon to tell from the current government as to whether they’re value for money.  

The last lot? Well. You know my views on that. Very few of them I think could have commanded a ministerial salary in the private sector, and I'd be really interested to find out from those who have left Parliament, got bundled out of Parliament, what they're doing now and whether they're earning anywhere near as much as they were earning as a minister. Somehow, I doubt it. Other than Grant Robertson, who managed to land himself, get his trotters inpossibly the biggest trough in the country, 600 odd thousand at the Otago University.  

They're on a hiding to nothing. Well, how else do we set their pay? An independent authority does it? They haven't had a pay rise since 2017. It's the wrong time to do it. Absolutely the wrong time to do it. When is the right time? We get value for money for some, not for the others. And still again, the question: would you do it for any money? 

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