Spending Cuts Versus Borrowing

Righty, here's a PR tip for the coalition government. If they want to win some support for their ongoing budget cuts that impact some of the poorest people in this country, they should consider giving up something themselves. Now I don't know if you saw this last week, but Stuff ran a damning story on Louise Upston, the Social Development Minister, who is a lovely woman and a very capable minister, but the look was terrible. While she's forcing some of the poorest Kiwis in this country to pay more towards housing before they get any help from the taxpayer, she is claiming a thousand dollars a week from the taxpayer to rent her Wellington apartment from herself. Today we hear MPs are again due to get a pay rise in July, bumping their pay up by 2% to, in the case of the Cabinet Ministers, like Louise, $327,000 a year. Now I raised this with Nicola Willis on the show last night. She's not prepared to touch MP's pay or allowances, and neither is the Prime Minister when he was asked about it today. And their excuse is that the money is decided by the independent remuneration authority. But anyone who's been around for more than five minutes knows that's a crock, because MPs are the ultimate lawmakers. They can override the REM Authority, and they have done, like when Jacinda froze the MP's pay for six years back in 2018. Now, frankly, I personally think quite independent of this whole argument, it is well overdue that MP's perks are reigned in. They are far too generous. These guys get really good pay, but then on top of that, they get expense allowances of at least $19,000 for flowers and coffees, up to $52,000 in accommodation allowances, which they use on their own apartments. They have their travel paid for, and then they have a superannuation scheme that is so generous it can be worth up to $70,000 a year on top of their pay. So you can add on to their pay about $120 to $140,000 at least in perks. Now that is hard to accept at a time when our budgets are so tight that we are quite rightly asking State House tenants to pay another $31 a week to square things off, and when we are quite rightly cutting nearly $9,000 public servants. But quite rightly, we should also be taking another look at just how much money we sink into MPs every year. I know MPs don't want to do this. No one wants to give up the entitlements that they are entitled to. But if they want to increase public support for their budget cuts, they could do with showing they're prepared to give up a little bit themselves. Because when you ask the country's poorest to take one for the team, or more specifically, the team's budget, you should be prepared to take one for the team too. It's called leadership.