Neil Sands
A campaign calling for MPs to disclose their expenses has generated an unprecedented public response since its launch last weekend, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union (NZTU) says.
The NZTU’s Open The Books campaign is pushing for all MPs – including government backbenchers and opposition parliamentarians – to meet the same expense disclosure standards as ministers.
While ministerial expenses are subject to detailed scrutiny via the Official Information Act (OIA), other MPs do not have the same level of transparency because they enjoy a special carve out from the legislation.
“That means that other than knowing the total amount spent by an MP on travel, or on their ‘office expenses’, we are none the wiser about what it’s actually going towards,” NZTU executive director Jordan Williams says.
He cites the example of Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who spent $39,209 on air travel in the three-month period from the beginning of April to the end of June this year.
Ngarewa-Packer’s social media posts show she went surfing during a visit to Hawaii over this period, but there’s no obligation to detail if public funds helped pay for the travel and, if it did, how the trip related to parliamentary duties.
Moat maintenance
Williams says details of MPs expenses are needed to ensure New Zealand avoids the situation that confronted the United Kingdom’s Parliament in 2009, when details of MPs’ expense claims were leaked, causing public outrage.
They included one MP attempting to claim for a floating duck house in his pond and another who sought reimbursement from taxpayers for maintenance of the moat at his country estate.
While these were the most eye-catching examples, the scandal revealed abuse of parliamentary allowances was widespread, prompting apologies from senior leaders and the introduction of tighter rules in a bid to restore public trust in the system.
“If MPs are allowed to continue to hide behind blanket figures, the door will remain open for abuse of expenses, just as we saw in the UK,” Williams says.
NZTU policy and public affairs manager James Ross says almost 10,000 people signed up to support the Open the Books campaign in its first two days, the fastest response in the organisation’s history.
In addition, more than 150 people have stated they want to appear before a parliamentary select committee to discuss the issue.
“There’s clearly real emotion behind it,” Ross says. “Two days into the campaign and there’s thousands and thousands of submissions through the door.
“I think a lot of people, until we did this campaign, genuinely had no idea that this was the case and you couldn’t find out what MPs have been spending, because it seems so utterly ludicrous that you wouldn’t be able to.”
Ending OIA carve-out
The NZTU says legislation currently before a parliamentary select committee presents a timely opportunity to make MPs expenses more transparent.
The Parliament Bill (2024) is an omnibus bill that brings together four existing Acts “to provide a modern legislative framework for Parliament and the agencies that support it”.
Currently before a select committee after passing first reading in September, the bill covers a wide range of topics relating to parliamentary operations, including security, the duties of officials, funding of parliamentary agencies and the remuneration of MPs.
The NZTU says it has legal advice that a clause ending the OIA carve-out for MPs’ expenses could be inserted into the Bill.
The select committee is due to hold a public hearing into the Bill tomorrow.
The Law Commission called for details of MPs expenses to be made public in 2012, but its recommendation was never acted upon.
“We think there’s a case now to for saying if a body is receiving public funding and is performing a public function it should be accountable under the OIA,” the commission’s Professor John Burrows said it the time.
The Law Commission’s current president Amokura Kawharu said her organisation did not have a view on the issues raised by the NZTU.
“The commission stands by recommendations made in its earlier publications and their validity when they were made, but in general does not monitor whether past recommendations are still current nor revisit the positions we took unless this is required as part of a current review,” she told LawNews.
LawNews asked all parliamentary parties if they would support reforms to make details of MPs expenses public.
The ACT party was the only one to respond, saying its caucus had not developed a position on the issue.
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