Law Commission on Parliamentary Salaries and Perks

The Law Commission has published its review of the Civil List Act 1979, which sets out MPs salaries and expenses. They recommend:

• Travel, accommodation, attendance and communications services for members of Parliament and members of the Executive should be determined by an independent body – an enhanced Remuneration Authority which includes a former MP and a person with appropriate skills and
  experience in the administration of Parliament
• The RA should also determine entitlements to funding and services to support parties’ and members’ parliamentary operations
• The Official Information Act 1982 should be extended to cover information held
  by the Speaker in his role with ministerial responsibilities for Parliamentary
  Service and the Office of the Clerk; the Parliamentary Service; the Parliamentary
  Service Commission; and the Office of the Clerk in its departmental holdings
• The OIA should not apply to information held by members in their capacity as members of Parliament, information relating to the development of parliamentary party policies,  and party organisational material, including media advice and polling information.
• Unauthorised absences of greater than nine days should result in 0.2% of annual salary being deducted a day. That is around $250 a day, up from $10.

Overall this looks very good. I’ve long supported the OIA applying to the financial aspects of Parliamentary Service, but have not supported full inclusion, where someone like me (for example) could send in an OIA asking for all e-mails between Phil Goff and his press secretaries. No parliamentary party could operate with its internal e-mails being made available to the media and other parties.

So I think the Law Commission have done a good job on the OIA side, as their proposals hopefully stand a good chance of being adopted.

The handing over of perks, expenses and parliamentary party funding to an independent body is also an idea whose time has come. Having a former MP and someone with parliamentary administration experience on the Remuneration Authority should mean that its decisions will be made on practical experience, not textbook theory.

I hope the Government, and indeed all parties, support the report. There may be some fine-tuning to be done, but the principles look good to me.

UPDATE: Yay the PM has just announced that the Government has accepted in principle the recommendation to have MPs and Ministers expenses set by an independent body. By the end of this term of Parliament, things will be hugely more transparent and accountable compared to 2008 and before.