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Finance Minister Nicola Willis during a media standup on her way to the House, Parliament, Wellington, New Zealand, May 21, 2026. Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The MPs need to take one for the team on cuts

Author: Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date: Tue, 26 May 2026, 7:06pm

Here’s a PR tip for the coalition Government: if they want to win support for their ongoing budget cuts - which affect some of the poorest people in this country - they should consider giving up something themselves.

Now, I don’t know if you saw this last week, but Stuff ran a damning story on Louise Upston, the Social Development Minister, who is a lovely woman and a very capable minister - but the optics were terrible.

While she’s forcing some of the poorest Kiwis in this country to pay more towards housing before they get any help from the taxpayer, she is claiming $1000 a week from the taxpayer to rent her Wellington apartment - from herself.

Today, we hear that MPs are again due to get a pay rise in July, bumping their pay up by 2 percent to, in the case of Cabinet ministers like Louise, $327,000 a year.

Now, I raised this with Nicola Willis on the show. She’s not prepared to touch MPs’ pay or allowances, and neither is the Prime Minister, when he was asked about it today.

Their excuse is that the money is decided by the independent Remuneration Authority. But anyone who’s been around for more than five minutes knows that’s a crock because MPs are the ultimate lawmakers

They can override the Remuneration Authority and they have done so before - Jacinda Ardern froze MPs’ pay for six years back in 2018.

Now, frankly, quite independently of this whole argument, I personally think it is well overdue that MPs’ perks are reined in. They are far too generous.

These guys get really good pay but on top of that, they receive expense allowances of at least $19,000 for things like flowers and coffees, up to $52,000 in accommodation allowances -which they can use on their own apartments - fully paid travel and a superannuation scheme so generous it can be worth up to $70,000 a year on top of their salary.

So, you can add somewhere between $120,000 and $140,000 at least in perks to their base pay.

That is hard to accept at a time when our budgets are so tight that we are, quite rightly, asking state house tenants to pay another $31 a week to square things off - and when we are, quite rightly, cutting nearly 9000 public servants.

But quite rightly, we should also be taking another look at just how much money we sink into MPs every year.

I know MPs don’t want to do this. No one wants to give up the entitlements they’re entitled to. But if they want to increase public support for their budget cuts, they could do with showing they’re prepared to give up a little themselves.

Because when you ask the country’s poorest to take one for the team - or more specifically, the team’s budget - you should be prepared to take one for the team too.

It’s called leadership.

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