PAYMENT OF MEMBERS

Northern Advocate, 12 October 1928, Page 5

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS

QUESTION REVIEWED INCREASE JUSTIFIED. OPINIONS OF MR T. K. SIDEY.

(Per Press Association. —Copyright.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The following statement was issued last :iight by Mr T. K. Sidey M.P.. on the subject of members’ salaries and superannuation:— “Daring this Parliament I have acted as chairman of the committee which has considered the question of members’ salaries and superannuation At' I am no longer seeking re-election I can now speak on this subject with greater freedom and from a disinterested point of view. “The honorarium for many years took the form of a sessional allowance. It wms assumed that members had other sources of income, and had private work to do during the recess. It is now a salary and there is an ever Increasing number of members for whom the honorarium is their only means of livelihood. “The following are some of the consideiations bearing on this question: (1) —The work of a Member of Parliament does not end with the session—his work is never done. He is always at the bock and call of his constituents, has never-ending correspondence, frequent calls to attend public functions, and he must give consideration to many questions likely to come before the House. (2) — Every three years he has to contest an election for the Legislature and the contemplated expenditure, for this purpose, of £2OO, is based on pre-war values. When indirect expenses are taken into account, it costs many members much more than that. (3) — He has to live in Wellington for from four to six months and, in most cases, has to maintain his home in another part of the Dominion at the same time. (4) —He has to meet many claims for public and private sub seriplions. (5) —His duties involve travelling expenses, more or (less depending on the constituency he rep resents. “When all these considerations arc taken into account it will be recognised that £4(50 is quite inadequate as a salary and is not to be compared With a similar salary paid to an officer of the Public Service. “There is only one Australian State that does not pay its members more than they are paid in (New Zealand, and that is South Australia, whose population is not more than 500,000. Tasmania, whose population is not 2£i0,000. pays some of its members more and komo less. The salaries range from £370 to £SOO. In New South Wales, 'the salaries are £875. New Zealrnd, as a Dominion, occupies a higher status than any of the Australian States, “On the question of superannuation for members, a House of Representatives scheme was worked out under which, by the annual payment of £IOO, a retiring allowance of £l5O might ibe granted to a member who ,had served for three Parliaments, or nine years; the amount to be increased by £25 for each additional Parliament and rising to a maximum of £250 for service in seven or more Parliaments. An interesting feature of the actuarial. calculations, in this connection, was that the political mortality of a Member of Parliament decreased as his number of Parliaments increased, his greatest chance of political extinction being after his first Parliament. “One of the objections raised during the expiring Parliament to giving effect to the proposals for an increase in salary or superannuation, was that the questions were not before the country at the last election. “My object in drawing the public’s attention to them now is that they may not be lost sight of during the approaching elections, and that the above objection may not be available in the new Parliament to which members may be returned after having expressed themselves definitely on those questions during the campaign now in progress ’ ’ r