Speaker: Remembering the Chartists
269 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 11 Newer→ Last
-
In our fair land it is a substitute for class.
This doesn't seem to answer the question. It seems to indicate only what you think other people think.OK. Maybe I should have put "Yes, because" before the statement ironically referring to our, alleged, egalitarian society. so I suppose I should have written "Yes, because in our fair land wealth is a substitute for class."
Clearer?. -
That's a good point. Public respect, at least as measured by those surveys, is not at all closely tied to income.
I'll try again.
Those people, in this country, who accumulate vast wealth seem to think it is analogous to being Royalty.
Do you not see that?. -
Doctors would also argue they should be well paid because they have to undergo very long stretches of training (and incur considerable costs in doing so), meet very high qualification standards, and constantly upskill to maintain professional standards. Don't think they're wrong either.
I think what they do makes some of these people - and other medical professionals - the closest thing to angels on earth, and I'd want them to live a comfortable life. But does this mean they should be able to live a more "lavish" life than a politician?
I don't have an answer to this. In the past, I've looked at what I earn, and what I think other people earn, and felt angry at a percieved difference in recognition of personal worth.
These days, I don't see people who have more money as being better people at all. Nor do I think they're any worse. If they bring more money to the people who pay them, it seems logical that they'd get paid more for what they do. (That's a test that can be used in the "Bill English" discussion, and subsequent conversations, I guess.)
I don't think most highly paid people I know are even particularly happy; just somehow driven. I wonder if most politicians, for example, will ever be really happy/content?
-
Those people, in this country, who accumulate vast wealth seem to think it is analogous to being Royalty.
From what I've seen, I'd agree with this. I've seen something similar in young guys who can play certain guitar licks. But I'm not inclined to think that either group has much to recommend them over you or me on the basis of those things alone.
-
I always find it amusing that when justifying their pay MPs say but of course we would earn more if we were out in the workplace
Yeah, right.
Yes, there are a limited number of high-flying lawyers and corporate whores (John Key and Richard Worth among them) who take a pay cut in their pursuit of political power and an unbeatable business card. But its certainly not the case for most of them. Paula Bennett was an electorate secretary. Trevor Mallard was a teacher. My local MP was until recently a student association president. None of these people were earning $131K a year plus $14K expenses plus accomodation and travel before they entered politics.
It's about pissing contests, nothing more.
-
However, one of the reasons for paying people more is recognition of the value they bring to society.
Nonsense. Rugby players are paid more than doctors. Shortland St actors are paid more than nurses and teachers. Traders playing the markets earn more than all of the above.
By all means rip the politicians for rorting the system, or for being a waste of your tax dollars, but the argument that they shouldn't be paid what the get paid because elsewhere people's renumeration is related to their value to society is simply not true.
-
That's a good point. Public respect, at least as measured by those surveys, is not at all closely tied to income.
That's an interesting point. Fire fighters have been top of the "Most Trusted Profession in New Zealand" surveys for several years, and the vast majority of them aren't paid anything (about 85% are volunteers). The ones who do get paid for it start on $32k after completing training, while after 20 years and with station management duties and responsibility for, generally, incidents with up to about 16 fire fighters (at which point chiefs start to come along and take over) the base rises to a whopping $55-60k.
At the opposite end are politicians, who're about the most highly-paid in the surveys, possibly excepting lawyers (I think they're in there) and airline pilots.
And speaking of how woeful fire fighters' remuneration is, there's the possibility of a fire fighters' strike this year. Unlikely, but possible. NZPFU have already reached the "work to rule" point in trying to get a new collective agreement after over a decade on an expired one.
-
I'm with whoever said that we need some sort of structure that defines a family home and a secondary residence
Trevor has beaten me to the post and he has posted the form used by Parliamentary Services to determine an MP's 'Primary Place of Residence.'
(Not used for Ministers that I know of)
The form has been in use for at least three elections that I know of, and has to be signed off by ParlServ and the Speaker before a non-Minister MP can claim a Wellington Accommodation Allowance.
-
Kong,
Blimey am I the only dimwit who had to look up the b-word.
You are not alone. I made the mistake of looking it up on Google and clicking the second link, rather than just going to the Wiki. I'll never get that image of Kiwiblog out of my mind.
Adam Hunt's post is interesting but ... that was then and this is now. A lot has happened in politics since 1838. The radical dreams of the Chartists have been replaced by the reality of mass enfranchisement, both for men and women. Their position seems refreshingly quaint, the visions of people who didn't have 170 years of history to mull over and see exactly how their visions and theories panned out in reality.
For starters they didn't see anywhere in there the problem of parties, which casts a massive shadow over almost everything they were talking about. It is a naive POV that anyone who feels like it can stand for parliament, and the payment of members will raise every barrier arm in his way. Politics is now a profession, and people who want to get into it must align themselves with a party, which has rules of its own to keep the plumbers out. At the very least, the party machine requires that you must either:
1. Do the hard yards for a few decades, grinding for the party, or
2. Be a celebrity, or
3. Be very rich and generousFurthermore, the payment of members only protects members from destitution. Candidates get nothing. So the barrier was always still there - anyone trying to get into Parliament still needed independent support. This is still the case, although the party machine somewhat alleviates this, taking on a number of the costs itself, so long as you satisfy the aforesaid preconditions. Which of course makes the party machine stronger - only rich people could possibly show any hope of challenging a major party, people like Bob Jones. Independents can sometimes be elected, but they tend to be defectors who have already made the jump into political life, and established some wealth, a base of support, and a lot of contacts.
I find it hard to get excited about English's house every bit as much as all of the minor personal attacks which seems to have come to characterize NZ politics. It's only interesting because you know that English would do the same to anyone else in the same situation, a bit of a sideshow watching politicians go at each other.
At any level that means anything to public policy, the best we might be able to say is that he's a bit of a hypocrite. Like most people. It's always going to be easy to sting any right wing party with that, because they get public money, but officially stand against the idea of shelling out too much public money. I say officially carefully because in practice, the amount of money spent by either of the major parties varies so little that you have to watch closely to see the difference - it's not usually in the amount, but rather in who gets the money.
-
And most importantly, it looks at where you actually live, rather than where you happen to be registered for electoral purposes.
Why wasn't a similar fact-based regime used for Bill English?
-
Indeed. And they don't need the Prime Minister telling them to shut up either.
PM stomps on citizen for questioning his policies - it wasn't a great look. And we do have to do our part in reducing carbon emissions. Having said that, I do wish these celebrity lobbyists would STFU.
It irritates me how blithely dismissive they seem to be of the economic cost a 40% reduction could mean. Of course, I'm only concerned with trivialities like how I can support a family and pay the mortgage. These actors have the responsibility of SAVING THE WHOLE PLANET...
-
However, one of the reasons for paying people more is recognition of the value they bring to society.
I have to agree that this is nonsense. The people who get the most money are the people who make the most money for their masters, be they be sports clubs, Media companies or money speculators.
I think Key's dismissive response to Keisha Castle-Hugh's is interesting, because I think if a theme is developing around this government it is of one of being a bunch of white, nouveau-snobs not interested in anyone who doesn't conform to their narrow definition of who is fit to take part in civil society.
-
And I personally think it would be nice if Labour's chief whip actually stood up and said "we dropped the ball on this one" rather than saying "move along, nothing to see here."
I fully agree. But will listen to the RNZ interview too.
Politicians, though, are not uniquely skilled people, except maybe at being suckups who can tolerate endless hours of brown-nosing.
Matthew, I think that's unduly harsh. There are some sycophants and blow-hards, but by and large they work hard and faithfully and it's not a job anyone would want to do.
None of these people were earning $131K a year plus $14K expenses plus accomodation and travel before they entered politics.
It's about pissing contests, nothing more.
I/S, this too seems harsh. They're reasonably well paid agreed, some have experience that would make them appointable to many senior jobs and for others, it might be a pay increase, but they put in the hours.
I don't disagree that many professions ought to be paid more, nurses particularly, but I don't think we pay too much for a backbencher if they're working 10 hour days 6 or more days a week.
-
I have to agree that this is nonsense. The people who get the most money are the people who make the most money for their masters, be they be sports clubs, Media companies or money speculators.
Tom, Shay, the point is over that way *points into the distance*.
I said one of the reasons not the only reason. I actually think it's pretty fucked that we pay entertainers such stupid sums, but they do have the advantage of economies of scale. A doctor can only treat so many patients. A single episode of Shorters is watched by more people than a consulting surgeon could hope to treat in their entire career.
-
It's not quite Shut Up And Sing, but still not all that far off either.
-
PM stomps on citizen for questioning his policies - it wasn't a great look
And he put it in his speech, which does make it worse. Politicians can often be forgiven for unfortunate remarks, but it appears Key actually meant to do it.
Given his own history of prevarication and conflicting utterances on climate change, he would do well not to try and slap down someone else on the issue.
-
Keisha should stop telling the Prime Minister what to do.
That's Simon Barnett's job.
-
I understand your point Matthew, but nonetheless still have to respectfully disagree.
Their value to society (let's assume we have a roughly similar interpretation of what does and does not have social value) isn't why doctors are paid well - after all a plastic surgeon who only does boob jobs would almost certainly be better paid than a GP.
They get paid well because there are relatively few of them - a result of the high barrier of entry for this job - compared to the number of people who need their services.
The real question is how do you decide how much we should pay politicians when no one thinks they have any need of their services.
-
That's Simon Barnett's job.
Ha, excellent.
-
And he put it in his speech, which does make it worse. Politicians can often be forgiven for unfortunate remarks, but it appears Key actually meant to do it.
Well, if the press hasn't caused him to regret this statement, I suspect this question (question 10 of today's Questions for Oral Answer) may:
CHARLES CHAUVEL to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement “We may not always agree with what you say, but we will always listen”?
-
The real question is how do you decide how much we should pay politicians when no one thinks they have any need of their services.
Apart from fanatical libertarians, and anarchists, I think most people accept that politicians have some utility. It may be as the butt of jokes, or as media fodder, but they have a purpose.
The harder issue is what's a suitable scale. Private industry would be fine if a criterion was having a successful past in private business. But many, if not the majority, don't. On both sides there is plenty of employed mediocrity. Also, when a nation has undergone the profound economic changes that have swept NZ in the last 20 years, how does one effectively value the politicians, such as Anderton, who have been in the House so long that whatever their past business success may have been it's now a) irrelevant and b) so diminished by inflation as to be worthless in current terms?
The nice thing about indexing to the salaries of a particular sector, or to the median income, is that those measures transcend time and inflation. They also give feedback as to the well-being of the economy, giving increased rewards when all is going well and diminishing ones when things are going to custard. And if it ever all goes thoroughly to shit and we suffer deflation, well, they get to share in that pain too. Coz you can be absolutely certain that we won't ever see deflation-linked decreases in parliamentary salaries. Well, not until there's a need for a Kathmandu outlet in the outer circles of Hades in any case.
-
How about a small retainer, say $35,000 plus WORK related expences. That way at least they would have to do some work.
;-) -
Key says "stick to acting"...
I'll apply Craig's argument here - Thats a conclusion I can arrive at on my own. I don't need the Prime Minister to tell me how to think, I would rather he used his time in more productive ways.
-
Keisha responds:
But back to John's weird personal attack, i think it's derogatory to state that it's not okay for New Zealanders to stand up and take interest in the world around them.Climate change is a global issue that affects our country as a whole. Before being anything else in my life, I am a mother, and that is why I am a part of this campaign. And as a mother i believe i have a right to speak up if i have concerns about the future of my daughter. Discouraging New Zealand youth to participate, think and speak out is not on for the Prime Minister of NZ.
I'm not claiming to be a scientist nor a climate expert. I am just doing what I can as a good global citizen.
John Key's climate change Minister Nick Smith has spent the last two weeks running a public consultation on what NZ should do on climate change. I was under the impression that the NZ Government was therefore interested in what the public had to say. Is the PM all of a sudden NOT interested in public input?
She's feisty.
-
how does one effectively value the politicians
By voting for them. Or not, as the case may be.
Let me put it another way - how do we decide how much to pay them when no-one thinks politicians do anything of value.
indexing to the salaries of a particular sector, or to the median income
But improving the national median, or salaries of a certain sector, are not necessarily an indication of how well an MP is doing the job they were employed to do - politicians are voted in by an electorate first an foremost to serve that electorate's interests.
Coming up with some sort of performance pay system based on that would have bizarre results too - imagine if because the Business Roundtable and the suburb of Epsom never had it better - Rodney Hide would be the highest paid person in parliament while the rest of us went down the shitter...
Most of us will feel ripped off no matter what they get paid and how their pay is set. Let's hold them to account, and whack them on the snout when they get too far into the trough, but my original point still stands - it's still a sideshow, shooting fish in a barrel, and more to do with the media taking aim at easy targets than any greater good.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.