..the backbenchers go to questiontime..

..then return to their rooms to self-arouse..

..they have nothing else to do..

..the mindnumbing boredom..

..must be just that..

..and even in questiontime..

..most of them are reading/crosswords/daydreaming..

..they have nothing else to do..

..except go yah..!..boo..!..

..on cue..

..being a backbench mp must be like waiting for godot..

(rkbee gets comment of the day/week/month..heh..!..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)

[DPF: You see to know nothing about what MPs do. The House is a small part of it. There are select committees, caucus committees, portfolio work, constituency work, party work, etc etc]

Fuck that. I want some hyperbole, bigotry and rabble rousing.

I truly believe that more folk would be motivated to get into politics. Bigger candidate pool, better chance of a sensible MP.

Or am I being too naive?

Yeh but where’s the expectation the best quality candidate has been selected, as opposed to the usual numpty?

Not being Grumpy. My point is valid. Pay the going rate in a commercial world. Or even more than the pay for the CEO’s in the Public Domain.

But Having no treats after Parliament, will make them more accountable.

Anyway, nanny always told me about the dangers of talking to poor people!

And I understand GM, I really do. I know how upsetting it must be for you when facts get in the way of a good grump. But you see, those of us in the reality based community work on things like facts. Old fashioned, I know. But that’s the way we are.

But you keep on making your little plans. It’s nice you have a hobby.

My estimate of average hours…

I’d say this is a maximum, not an average. Watch Parliament TV in the evenings and count the handful of MPs actually there. And shouldn’t there be a requirement to resign from all other jobs / directorships / elected positions if you are being paid a salary as a full time MP?

Informative piece though David, thanks for putting the time and effort into this. It would be interesting to see how close the IRD estimate of air travel is compared to actual use per MP – i.e. divide the total spent on air travel over a year by the number of MP’s.

[DPF: Don't confuse attendance in the House with being at work. Almost all MPs are in Parliament - working on correspondence, constituent inquiries etc.]

Prick.

The PM should be on circa £2m- $4 all in. Plus any travel, insurance, and other stuff that would be necessary to in the function and performance of that role.

Pensions, post power freebies all to be cancelled. They can make fortunes from the lecture circuit, UN Sinecures, Non Exec Directorships etc.

Cut out the post power trinkets!!!

You need to go to Parliament’s website and check out the Justice & Electoral C’tee’s report on the “99 MPs” Bill …
http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/…/DBSCH_SCR_3542_3576.pdf

Appended to this are some damn fine statistics from one DPF, which appear to demonstrate you are speaking from your your arse.

Goodnight.

The UK has far too many, even with the huge population. 500 would be plenty, instead of 635.

You would have thought that after all this time, all the necessary laws have been passed, tested, and are fine.

NZ does not need any more laws.

EU spews out 3 a day, and their representatives are remunerated on how much they can control the Federal Population.

Stasi 2.0

FFS, why doesn’t somebody call a sensible and workable number of members in the House that would suit a 5mill population, that doesn’t have any interference from a superior Federal Authority.

As for pay, they should be on $250k -$500k, and find everything themselves, travel, pensions, the lot! No post power priveledges.

It is the long tail expenses that always get discounted, and cost the most over time. Bit like the AUW agreements in the States

I also agree that the current rem is peanuts for capable people yet is much more than some are/were ever worth: e.g. remember morons who aren’t worth it like Kopu.

Personally, I’d like to see both performance incentives and, critically, disincentives for poor performance. I know its difficult to design rem packages when the oil tanker takes sometimes years to turn around, but surely it’s not beyond human capability to design a system that rewarded actual outcomes in the field of politics. Forget the rhetoric that accompanies a change. Assess the outcomes.

For example, Max Bradford. Should he be rewarded or penalised for his electricity reforms? The jury’s in. The answer’s clear. You could go through the entire list of past MPs.

The point is, every commercial operation offers incentives but the flaw is, they’re appropriate for the drones on a short-term basis but not for the senior management. However they also offer them to senior management on a short-term basis. If you designed incentives and penalties based on a five-ten-15 and 20 year outcome, factoring in the “noise” created by successors who’d subsequently reversed/distorted them, using the 20/20 hindsight of actual market outcomes, and made the sum or penalty significant and meaningful, you could create a real incentive scheme that would both motivate and penalise these plump velvet-coated silk-bottomed creatures we call MPs.

It’s already well established that *most* of the left had to “suffer” an extraordinary pay increase when they arrived in Wellington. Comrade Sue especially went from being a beneficiary and had particular legal issues to address when coming an MP as she had been banned from the grounds of Parliament a few times. No wonder whe has kept her head down in fear that she may end up having to live off that MA in Chinese

Is it true that John Key gives his entire or part thereof his salary away to charity?

1. Are they there all the time; and
2. While they are physically there, are they there mentally?

MP:
Mon 9 – 6 (8 hrs excl meals)
Tue 8 – 11 (13 hrs)
Wed 8 – 11 (13 hrs)
Thu 8 – 9 (12 hrs)
Fri 9 – 5 (7 hrs)
Sat 9 – 5 (7 hrs)
Total = 60 hrs

Minister
Mon 7 – 7 (10 hrs)
Tue 7 – 12 (13 hrs)
Wed 7 – 12 (13 hrs)
Thu 7 – 9 (12 hrs)
Fri 9 – 5 (7 hrs)
Sat 9 – 5 (7 hrs)
Sun 12 – 9 (8 hrs)
Total = 70 hrs

This is excluding things like conferences which chew up entire weekends.

I’d believe they do it on a busy week – extended sitting hours, a couple of working dinners, maybe some constituency work and reading of papers etc on the weekend. But I find it hard to believe they’re averaging it – that for every 60 hour week they do, somewhere they do 100 hours.

I, and most of my peers in a professional job, would easily work 8->8 every day during the week, usually without any significant break (other than my blog breaks….), so that gives about 11 hours. 5 days a week, there’s 55 hours. A handful of hours in the weekend catching up on e-mails, planning the week ahead. The odd work dinner – although I wouldn’t typically count those in my working hours. I guess as an MP you probably do 2-3 of them a week, so it starts to feel like work, but the line is rather gray.

So I can see a regular 60 hour week, but 80 sounds to me a bit like exaggeration.