Matt McCarten: Savings on benefit payments to the poor subsidise MP retirement fund

It's been one of those weeks where hypocrisy and venality seems to be swirling around more than usual.

The Labour Party had its 90th birthday and deservedly celebrated in style. The Prime Minister must have really got into the giving mood by presenting her "retiring" minister, Jim Sutton, with a couple of plum jobs. She tried to lavish a couple of ambassadorships on him, as well, but he said he resisted the temptation, only accepting an overseas consultancy trade job and the chairmanship of Landcorp.

I'm told that it will only take up a few hours a week but pulls in a tidy $100,000 on top of his Ministerial pension. Apparently it means he gets the same money now as a Cabinet Minister. Not a bad birthday pressie at all. Most of us would call it a golden handshake, of course.

Given Helen Clark's announcement that she wants a few more of her MPs to hit the street before the election we should get used to more MPs being offered similar deals.

One of the downsides of MMP is that, for the sake of internal management, all the political parties put their sitting MPs in winnable spots on their party list. So even when their local electorate votes them out as their electorate MP, they miraculously reappear in parliament on the same salary and perks. After an electorate MP gets over the humiliation at losing their seat they soon realise they don't have to turn up each Saturday in their electorate office and listen to the gripes of their constituents.

In fact, it soon dawns on them that being a List MP is a very cushy number indeed and they never have to talk to a voter ever again. The revenge of the MP against their electors is a bonus. For once they are a list MP they have a job for life. The only way they can lose their new job and salary is for their leader to bribe them with an even cushier number funded by the taxpayer.

Remember Jonathan Hunt? The possibilities are endless. All this talk about the skills these "retiring MPs" will bring to these new jobs is possibly true. But the real reason for these new jobs is bribery to get them to move aside. They get their parliamentary pension topped up with a well-remunerated part-time job. Nice for some.

But it does ram home that there are different realities for the rulers and the ruled, even when Labour is in power. For example, this was also the week in which the Ministry of Social Development reported that people living in severe hardship has doubled since Labour was elected. Almost all of these 320,000 New Zealanders are beneficiaries and their children. Given the cuts to the poor that Ruth Richardson introduced in 1991 have never been redressed and the cost of living has soared, these figures should come as no surprise.

I know it's a favourite past-time for some New Zealanders to blame beneficiaries for their circumstances. But it's the kids who go without when we slash their parent's income. Some of the savings we make off the poor are no doubt used by the Prime Minster to subsidise her MP's retirement sinecure. As one Labour MP dryly commented to me: "We don't have to wear sackcloth and be poor to represent the poor". Yet, in the early years of the Labour Party their leaders preached the gospel that their parliamentary salaries should not be more than the average working wage. They felt it important that they were part of the daily struggle of their constituents, not above it. I'm not sure what the founders of the Labour Party would think if they knew that their successors would be paid five times the average working person's wage on the premise that MPs should be paid the same as bosses.

We are to believe, of course, we can't help all the poor because there just isn't the tax revenue. Maybe the $48 million tax break, announced on Thursday, the Government gave back the makers of King Kong might have helped. I'm a fan of Peter Jackson and his work, but our taxpayer contribution was equal to 3.2 million full ticket payers in the theatres. Not a bad gift by New Zealanders to the production company that has made a $150 million profit on the film so far, with many more millions to come in yet. Maybe it would have been better if the government took the tax and then bought every New Zealander a free movie pass to see the film instead. It must be our cultural insecurity that makes us suckers to smooth talking lobbyists.

That must be why the irony of corporate suits this weekend paying $1500 of their shareholders money for a booze-up with a couple of old musos talking about corporate responsibility doesn't make us laugh so hard we pee our pants.

I'm sure Sir Bob is used to the celebrity racket now but dining out on Aid Africa for so long is impressive. The Sex Pistols' former manager, Malcolm McLaren - giving advertising and marketing tips to senior corporate barons on brand and media management - can't be topped for its bald-faced cheek.

The young punks of the 1970s must find it hard coming to the realisation that punk was always just a marketing gimmick. How sad is that? If you are going to sell out you may as well get well paid for it. For that I admit to having a sneaky respect for these two guys.

After all, unlike our MPs, Geldof and McLaren get the gullible rich, not the poor, to pay for their lucrative retirement gigs.