It’s been obvious for ages that the public takes a dim view of politicians taking taxpayer-funded allowances to live in Wellington properties that they
own.
Taxpayers hate it so much that politicians make the news for doing it even when it’s completely within the rules.
This week the culprits were Labour’s Kieran McAnulty (outed for taking the money after moving into his new wife’s Petone apartment) and National’s Tim Costley (outed for taking the money to pay for his Wellington apartment when his family home is only 58km up the road in Ōtaki).
A total of 23 MPs are doing it at the moment, claiming between $34,000 and $52,000 a year.
That list is actually a good guide to which of our MPs are the smartest with money. If taxpayers will give you up to $52,000 a year to cover the cost of staying in Wellington for parliamentary work, why would you give it to a landlord when you can use it to pay your own mortgage?
Answer: because taxpayers hate it. That was obvious all the way back in 2009 when Sir Bill English was busted taking the money to cover the cost of being in Wellington for work even though he’d moved his whole family to Wellington years ago. The public hated it so much he paid it back.
It was also obvious earlier this year when Christopher Luxon was busted taking the money when the public already pays for Premier House as the PM’s residence, as cruddy as it is. The public backlash was so intense he paid the money back.
You shouldn’t really have to spell it out for MPs but this rule needs to change. The public hates it. It’s a bad look.
It looks like MPs are abusing a well-intentioned allowance by turning it into a way to pay off the mortgage. By all means, keep the allowance, but don’t allow it to be claimed by MPs living in their own property.
This is about perception and perception is often reality, unfortunately.
For an alternative view: MPs deserve a pay rise, but bumping it up now is unthinkable - Jason Walls
I accept that changing the rules won’t necessarily save taxpayers a penny. If the rules changed, those money-smart MPs would all likely do the financially rational thing: move out of their own apartments, rent them out for top dollar, then move into a landlord’s apartment or a hotel and take the allowance to pay for that.
But it’s not about saving money. It’s about the perception.
And the perception has always been that politicians are very happy to screw the scrum in their favour. While they happily (and rightly) downsize the cost of government by firing public servants and slashing budgets, they welcome a pay rise for themselves. They can’t pay the cops properly but they can justify paying themselves more.
Voters are in a patch of particular grumpiness with the political class. It’s why United States voters elected a clown like Donald Trump: simply because he wasn’t in the political class. It’s also why they might do it again. And it’s why trust in politicians has fallen in recent years.
Clearly, the leaders of both major parties realise we don’t love the way this looks. Both Chrises say they’re open to the rules changing. But neither has committed to changing them. And Luxon just punted it lazily to the independent Remuneration Authority.
That’s nonsense. Parliament is sovereign. It can change the rules if it wants to. It just doesn’t want to.
And who would? A few tens of thousands of dollars of free money to help pay off the mortgage would be welcome in many households in the country.
The trouble for the politicians is that money comes with a cost: voter respect.
