MPs' pay rise officially confirmed

Prime Minister John Key said legislation would be passed in urgency so that the MP's pay increases could be brought down. Photo / Mark Mitchell

MPs have had their 1.52 per cent pay rise officially confirmed and backdated to July 1, 2014.

The Remuneration Authority today advised MPs the new pay rates had been gazetted for the first since Parliament passed new pay-fixing laws for MPs in March this year.

The law change was the Government's response to repeatedly high pay increases for MPs that made them the object of public criticism.

Without it, MPs were due to get a 3.7 per cent pay increase.

The new law will align MPs' pay increases with public sector pay increases as set out in the Quarterly Employment Survey of the previous year.

So the 1.52 per cent increase is based on the increase that full-time employees in the public sector got between July 2013 and June 2014.

Under the cancelled pay decisions in February, MPs were to have received an extra $1200 as a result of a change in an IRD assessment of personal benefit. But the authority said the wording of the new law means they will no longer get it.

The authority said it would work with the Speaker and Minister for Ministerial Services to come up with a statement of value of the personal benefits or potential personal benefits of services -- such as discounted air travel.

MPs will get another pay rise later this year based on the 2014-2015 public sector pay movements.

The new pay settings:

Prime Minister $435, 013

Deputy Prime Minister $308,519

Cabinet ministers$272,581

Ministers outside cabinet $229740

Under-Secretary $178,269

Leader of the Opposition $272,581

Chairperson of select committee $164,665

Ordinary members of Parliament $150,047