Disgrace goes unchecked
THE MPS are it again. Once again they have sabotaged reform of the indefensible system that allows them to set their own travel perks. Once again they have dressed up their naked self-interest as high constitutional principle. Once again the public will be appalled.
John Key had promised to clean the parliamentary stables. He accepted the Law Commission’s proposals to transfer MPs’ control of their travel and accommodation allowances to an independent body. His government introduced a bill last year to give the power to the Remuneration Authority, which already sets parliamentary salaries.
But a select committee has now gutted the bill. The perks will stay under the control of the Speaker, and the ministers’ travel and accommodation allowances will stay with the minister for Ministerial Services, Mr Key.
The prime minister touted the original reforms as necessary and important, a new direction that increased transparency, accountability and independence. Yet he has now done a U-turn and accepted the select committee’s changes. National MPs will vote for the gutted and filleted bill.
This is a repeat of the fiasco of a decade ago, when a Labour-led government promised a similar reform and then ratted on the deal and MPs butchered the reform in select committee. It is almost as though we have made no significant progress since the days of Jonathan Hunt, the minister for wine and cheese, and the Speaker who defended the last round of sabotage.
Mr Key tries to paint this shattering personal defeat as some kind of victory. He still supports the principle that an independent body should decide the allowances, ‘‘and this bill makes further steps in that direction’’.
Not many steps. In fact the only one seems to be the decision to make the authority rather than the Speaker responsible for setting the travel allowances of MPs’ family members. In fact, this should never have been in the gift of the MPs. Nobody can argue that free travel for family members is a vital part of the MP’s job.
Britain and Australia both have independent bodies that set MPs’ travel perks. They have seen through the canting claim that MPs’ power to set their own perks is some kind of constitutional principle. MPs have misused this notion for a very long time. It took the monstrous British MPs perks’ scandal to put the final nail in that argument in Britain.
New Zealand MPs’ travel perks have been a running sore for the simple reason that there is no limit to their use. MPs can fly free anyway in the country for any reason whatsoever. This is plainly ludicrous and it is only the politicians’ self-interest that blinds them to its monstrosity.
It is no good arguing that they have made the system more transparent by publishing each quarter the total spent on travel by each MP. We still don’t know any details, such as which individual trips they made or for what reason. So once again the MPs have won. Once again they have protected their indefensible system. Once again a weak government has connived with their scheming. Once again Parliament has disgraced itself.