Howard's End: How Can They Sleep At Night!

Personally, if I were a politician I couldn't sleep at night knowing that I took a pay rise from the peoples' dollar, while many of my constituents were being laid-off and are wondering if they can pay their bills, let alone provide any sort of Christmas for their families. 'Tis the season to be greedy! Maree Howard writes.

In giving our politicians yet another pay rise the Higher Salaries Commission chairman, Hutton Peacock, says the country needed the best people in Parliament and should pay them accordingly.

So where are these "best people" lining up to be MP's?

Presumably Peacock means business people because he says the politicians pay rises compare with executive pay rises of between 5 and 7%.

Really!

It appears the Higher Salaries Commission believes that despite a global recession (depression) wars, a poor outlook for the economy and corporate earnings tanking, its mechanism must let the increases to politicians go ahead regardless?

Worse, the politicians will be in line for yet another pay rise next June - their fourth in two years.

Jim Anderton says "I want somebody (other than MP's) to do it. If they raise it, lower it, or put it sideways that's fine by me."

Yeah right!

The way our politicians do business, these latest increases are an obscene amount of money for men and women who job-out all of their tough decisions to bureaucrats and agency chiefs.

And not only that, the timing just plain stinks.

I am also sick and tired of the spin, the anything goes attitude and the intolerance on both the political left and the right. They both play the same game, and it's wrong.

Politicians justify their rule - it's not governance - by telling people there's no right or wrong, we don't have a right to be judgmental of anything, we don't have a right to confront anything, there's always an excuse.

It dawned on me that this kind of anything goes, we can justify anything, we can spin anything, nothing is really wrong, if it feels good do it attitude, is harming our society.

Our politicians are behaving like royalty! How dare you question our motives or our activites or anything we do - we have a divine right.

Well hey, I don't play that game. I look at everybody and everybody is accountable. All I ask of powerful people is that they respond honestly to questions, and if they can't, explain why.

I don't think that's too much to ask but I'm sick of the political propaganda and spin - or the no reply.

On occasion, I've asked politicians and political parties some questions. I'm still waiting for replies to outstanding questions from Annette King, the ACT Party and the National Party.

Why are they not answering the questions? Is there something about it that's offensive? What's the deal here?

The decisions of our dubious lawmakers to take this latest pay rise, while denying others who have had their pay frozen for years, will do much to offest the effects of the recession - on their own personal economies.

It's an abomination and an outrage. Let not terrorism, nor war, nor lay-off's, nor dark economy, stop the greed of our lawmakers.

ENDS

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