Flag

aucklandwarlord

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="568168" data-time="1459241007">
<div>
I don't begrudge them having money in fact I'd prefer it if they had been in business and been successful rather than being just another pathetic career politician . But last election Cunliffe mocked Keys house and when his own place was shown to be just as expensive snivelled that it was a doer upper now we have this clown knocking people for having beach homes when she has one of her own . I think she's stood unsuccessfully in six elections but is so toxic the incumbents majority normally increases . 
Reigning champ is Materislistic Turei who expects us all to settle for less but waddles around parliament in a jacket that costs almost three times the average wage .
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Back in the 60's or 70's a backbencher MP used to be paid roughly the same as a frontline cop. Look at the disparity now, where an average cop is on about 60-65k a year and a backbencher on 130k + per year. Obviously there are way more cops than MP's so to give them all pay rises costs a heap more than giving 120 MPs a pay increase each year, but even still, what a gulf that has opened up. I guess when you vote on your own payrise, it's hard to tell yourself there is no money in the budget, like cops, teachers and nurses etc hear every year.
 
I think what shits me the most is the MP's who go from student/student politician until they're 25 or 26. Graduate with three degrees based around politcal studies and other stuff, straight into the political parties and become MPs before they're 30. Suddenly they're creaming it, with five eighths of fuck all life/work experience. 
 
It's worth pointing out that I realise the above comments have no real relevance to the flag debate, just rants about politicians in general...

Mokey

For what cops, teachers and nurses have to put up with every day, they should be paid shitloads.
 
Totally agree about the MP payrise thing. Have they ever voted NOT to give themselves a payrise?

dogmeat

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="MajorRage" data-cid="569931" data-time="1459829615">
<div>
So, national anthem time anybody?
 
Aotearoa, rugged individual 
Glisten like a pearl, at the bottom of the world 
The tyranny of distance, didn't stop the cavalier 
So why should it stop me? I'll conquer and stay free
 
Ah c'mon all you lads, let's forget and forgive 
There's a world to explore, tales to tell back on shore 
I just spent six months in a leaky boat 
Six months in a leaky boat


</div>
</blockquote>
 
Banned by the BBC which was a pisser as it made it hard for Enz to capitalise on success of True Colours in UK
 
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Mokey" data-cid="569999" data-time="1459894146">
<div>
For what cops, teachers and nurses have to put up with every day, they should be paid shitloads.
 
Totally agree about the MP payrise thing. Have they ever voted NOT to give themselves a payrise?
</div>
</blockquote>
 
TBF - they have and they also have no say in their pay. It is linked to public service pay grades.

aucklandwarlord

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="dogmeat" data-cid="570008" data-time="1459896773">
<div>
TBF - they have and they also have no say in their pay. It is linked to public service pay grades.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
 
Really? Because for much of the last 8 years, the Police Association has had to scrap to get even 1% most years, yet the politicians seem to get offered 3-4% every year. Some years the cops were offered 0% payrise with a small lump sum payout (which obviously has no future cumulative effect) and I know nurses have been in the same boat for years too.
 
I know something was brought in recently regarding MP's salaries where it has been taken out of their hands and given to an independant authority, but I'm pretty sure for much of the last 30 years they voted for and decided on their own pay. I read somewhere that they always have the pay vote just before Christmas because from a political perspective it's when the general public cares least about it, so is therefore less outraged.
 
I have no qualms about the MPs who won their own electorates and do a lot for the community being paid well for the long hours they work, but plenty just snuck in by virtue of being high enough up the list in their respective parties and actually did horrendously in the elections

canefan

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aucklandwarlord" data-cid="570028" data-time="1459901686">
<div>
 
I have no qualms about the MPs who won their own electorates and do a lot for the community being paid well for the long hours they work, but plenty just snuck in by virtue of being high enough up the list in their respective parties and actually did horrendously in the elections
</div>
</blockquote>
That's a downside of MMP, some real tools get into parliament who would have no show in the FPP days

Mokey

Yep. People who have been soundly rejected by their electorate (and sometimes more than one) on several occasions but still they are there leeching away.

dogmeat

The Remuneration Board sets MP salaries.
 
In 2013 the anti-Christ (aka John Key) and his cabinet voted not to accept the Remuneration Boards pay increase and instead introduced a law change limiting any increase to a aximum of the average public sector pay increase in the preceding year.
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11411205 '>http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11411205 </a>
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">
Critics of politicians' pay increases need to be careful what they wish for. It is too easy for the leader of a ruling party to agree and dispense with independent, careful and sensible criteria for setting their remuneration. That is what John Key proposes to do. Agreeing with criticism of the latest pay increase awarded by the Remuneration Authority, Mr Key's Cabinet has decided to legislate to overturn the raise and replace the authority's pay-setting criteria with just one: from here on, MPs' baseline rate will rise by no more that the average public sector pay increase in the previous year.
 
That link has obvious political attractions for National and pitfalls for Labour. A government that keeps a budgetary squeeze on public servants' salaries will be able to say it is accepting the same austerity for itself, while a government that is happy to see pay rates rising in the public sector will be open to the accusation of self-interest. Labour's leader was concerned yesterday that the Prime Minister's proposal might be used as an excuse not to give "nurses, teachers, police officers and other hard-working civil servants the wage increases they deserve" this year.
 
Andrew Little suggests a review of MPs' pay-setting arrangements should instead curb the salaries of chief executives in the public service. These have raced far ahead of the rates for even the PM and Cabinet members. The PM's annual salary is $428,000. The head of the Treasury receives at least $650,000, the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, $620,000. Its minister, Steven Joyce, is on $268,000.Chief executives in the private sector receive far more than the chair and members of their boards, but the pressure on private-sector executives to produce measurable results is much greater than it is in the state service and their job security is much lower. It may be that departmental heads, these days sometimes recruited from the private sector, could command greater salaries outside the public service but the Remuneration Authority has been worried at the widening gap between the pay of ministers and those who report to them.
 
Holding, or even reining back, top rates in the public service would help to contain increases in parliamentary salaries. The system which Mr Key wants to jettison sets MPs' salaries by using as a starting point the pay for public servants doing work of similar complexity and responsibility. The authority then deducts the value of MPs' superannuation subsidy and personal benefit they may derive from free air travel and other "perks".
The result is a basic backbencher's salary of $148,000 a year, which would have become $156,000 backdated to July if the authority's 3.5 per cent increase was allowed to stand. The increase is out of line with this year's very low inflation but the adjusted salary looks reasonable for the demands on an MP. Politicians' pay will never be popular, nor can it ever reflect the national import of the decisions leading politicians make. Decisions affecting their own pay are among those they should never make.
</blockquote>

aucklandwarlord

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="dogmeat" data-cid="570056" data-time="1459907964">
<div>
The Remuneration Board sets MP salaries.
 
In 2013 the anti-Christ (aka John Key) and his cabinet voted not to accept the Remuneration Boards pay increase and instead introduced a law change limiting any increase to a aximum of the average public sector pay increase in the preceding year.
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11411205 '>http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11411205 </a>
</div>
</blockquote>
 
 
I'd love to know who in the public sector is getting the kind of pay increases that they base that on, or to bring the average public sector increase up to that! It certainly isn't the Police! I guess that's a symptom of operating under a budget freeze (which isn't officially a freeze) for the past few years.
 
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Mokey" data-cid="570054" data-time="1459907839">
<div>
Yep. People who have been soundly rejected by their electorate (and sometimes more than one) on several occasions but still they are there leeching away.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Absolutely. They're often the ones who have the most expensive travel bills (despite having no electorates to go back to) as well. Or the guys who are handed electorates on a plate, like that young National fella from down south who seems to be doing a great job of offending all the electorate office staff who have been there as long as he has been alive.

dogmeat

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="canefan" data-cid="570038" data-time="1459903639">
<div>
That's a downside of MMP, some real tools get into parliament who would have no show in the FPP days
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Yes and No. Some absolute piston wristed gibbons got in under FPP as well.
 
Not a lot has changed if at all - certainly with National. It's still about playing the game and sucking the right dicks.
 
The difference with Labour is Central Office seem to have all the power - largely as a result of Clark and Wilson stacking the electorate committees. This has now come back to bite them big time as the local committees have lurched towards the unelectable left (at a country level).
 
Nats still have some independence at the local level and seem for now to all be happy to toe the line as success is its own reward

taniwharugby

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Siam" data-cid="569978" data-time="1459867638">
<div>
Is there a chance the lockwood flag is used in a widespread manner by people informally, a bit like a viral movement?
 
Sporting audiences, private homes etc and it gains traction that way?
 
Perhaps an athlete at the olympics or some such
 
Just wondering because it seems weird if that's the end of a flag debate that was so close
</div>
</blockquote>
 
I cant find the article, but there were some athletes that said they were considering having the Alternative design with them to carry at Rio

The Silver Fern

Flag