Bill seeks to curb salaries

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 1

Bill seeks to curb salaries

By

BRENDON BURNS

in Wellington

review of salaries by the commission would have produced rises of about 30 per cent, covering the period from April, 1985, to late last year. Mr Rodger said the number {of people covered by the commission and its criteria < for determining salaries! were of concern to the but these tfere to be addressed |by the wider review. .

the Opposition, Mr Gair, said it was an eleventhhour move.

The Government’s bill to limit top State salaries to 10 per cent was introduced in Parliament yesterday, bringing Opposition charges of interventionism, poor administration and efconomic failure. The Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, said the bill was a short-term measure pending an overall review of the functions of the Higher Salaries Commission.

“They are buying time to push the problem past the difficulties of the next election. It smacks of political hypocrisy,” he said.

Mr Gair said the Prime Minister had promised in 1985 to introduce legislation last year to change the procedures of the Higher Salaries Commission.

“At the moment the mechanisms under which the conkmission operates permit ! adjustments of such an order that they threateri to destabilise existing wage structures,” he told; Parliament. The .Opposition did not vote against the bill’s introduction but criticised its arrival many months after the wages explosion which, followed the 1985 commission determination, i '

"This is at the very least sloppy administration,” he said. The Opposition leader of the House, Mr Birch, foreshadowed a motion at a later stage to have Cabinet Ministers accept only 5 per cent of the increase, and no rises at all for the Prime Minister.

Salaries for members of Parliament, judges, academics, senior public servants, and local body employees are limited to a maximum increase of 10 per cent until April next year.

Local body chairmen’s annual allowances are also included in the bill’s provisions. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, suggested on Monday that the forthcoming

He said the Opposition was prepared to accept 10 per cent salary rises in the interests of the country, but those responsible for the state of the econ-

The acting Leader of

omy should accept even less. The National member of Parliament for New Plymouth, Mr Tony Friedlander, suggested that the bill told State servants they were second rate. “The purpose of this legislation, as far as I can tell, is to pay State servants less,” he said. “Why on earth should we expect the best possible brains if we are nor prepared to pay for them?” The former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, relished the opportunity of applying his own label to the Labour Government’s bill. “It’s an abject admission of failure. It’s interventionism. Indeed; it’s Muldoonism,” Sir Robert said.

The bill was introduced without dissent for study by the Government Administration Select Committee.