Equal rise for Ministers?

Press, 24 September 1988, Page 9

Equal rise for Ministers?

Government Ministers should not get a higher pay increase than any other workers in the present wage round, said the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Moore, yesterday. “I don’t believe there is a Minister who believes, especially with the tax cuts looming, that they should get an increase higher than other workers during this wage round,” Mr Moore said. “I hope the Higher Salaries Commission takes this into account when it makes its independent decisions,” he told staff of the United Building Society at a “meet the workers” gathering in Christchurch. This year’s wage round appears to be settling on a benchmark increase of about 6 per cent.

The commission is expected to announce its review of politicians’ salaries within the next

few weeks. Members of Parliament are in line for a doublefigure percentage increase for the year, having received a 9.5 per cent increase in May. But Mr Moore said politicians must lead the wage round by example. “T>ere is a mood that our (Labour’s) reforms have fallen unfairly on some, that we have a North-South problem, a rich-poor problem, and now a brown-white problem. “If we are to work on ideas that can build a better understanding between owners and workers, farmers and wharfies, or teachers and taxpayers, then there has to be a feeling of equality of sacrifice.” Mr Moore said some understanding had already been made, with dramatic changes in the trade union movement. “The approach of the Council

of Trade Unions in the current wage round is a remarkable and historic event. As they say, jobs are the top priority — not just wages.” But Mr Moore said that he did not expect trade unions to give up trying to get the best deal for their members, any more than he expected large companies to decline large profits. “When that happens we will be deafened by the sound of the flapping of wings as the pigs fly overhead.” Mr Moore also discounted the effectiveness of Ministers turning down a pay rise, should it be higher than the norm. “On its own a pay rise refusal would be a shallow, one off, superficial response and would be quickly forgotten, as other pay refusals have been.” Service economy, Page 39