Senator BOB BROWN (Leader of the Australian Greens) (10:05 AM) —I move:

This motion is to disallow the regulation by which the members of parliament would get an extra $4,900 a year, or $90 a week, in electorate allowance. As all members of the chamber are aware, that allowance is to enable us to extend our services to our electorates. However, there is no mandating of that and it may be that members who do not spend the money on the electorate are able to use it as personal income; in which case, of course, it is taxable income. The problem with this decision by the Remuneration Tribunal is that it has apparently been taken in the absence of recognition by the tribunal—which is quite extraordinary in itself—that we are in a recession. There has been no increase in this allocation in real terms since 2002, and throughout all the boom years since then the Remuneration Tribunal made no decision to increase the amount. But it waits until we are in the middle of the worst recession, arguably, since the Great Depression and announces that members of parliament should be getting an extra $4,900 a year in electorate allowances. It is simply up to us to rectify that and we should be rejecting this proposal.

The budget that was announced the night before last had in it an increase for single pensioners of $32.49 a week, which they have been waiting for since 1993. I think it is untoward and unacceptable that we members of parliament should be getting three times that amount without any of the difficulties that pensioners find themselves in. In fact, for pensioner couples the increase is $10 a week, but MPs would be effectively getting $90 a week.

The Prime Minister had the wisdom last year to turn down the Remuneration Tribunal’s recommendation that members of parliament get quite a hike in the base salary that we receive. That was generally given a good reception—at least outside parliament. If this rise goes into the purses and wallets of MPs, it will be seen simply as a backdoor way of receiving that increase, and it has been seen in that way. I think that we have to be able to show the electorate that MPs are capable of some belt-tightening at a time when people are hurting. Hundreds of thousands of Australians are losing their jobs altogether or are having their small businesses closed down, and they are finding times very difficult indeed.

I think that the electorate at large would welcome MPs applying some restraint until this recession is over. Therefore, the Greens have decided to move for disallowance of a recommendation that, in my view, would never have come from the Remuneration Tribunal if it were living in the real world, if it had its eye on where society is and the relevant position of MPs, and, indeed, if it had any nous at all about the economic circumstances of this nation. Apparently, the three independent members of the Remuneration Tribunal live in some isolated world where news of economic events, if not other events, does not get to them. They should have taken into account the circumstances in which all Australians find themselves in a recession, and they should have made sure that their decision on this matter was commensurate with the existing circumstances in society. This rise is not commensurate with existing circumstances, and we should have the good sense that the Remuneration Tribunal did not have and reject the recommendation that electoral allowances increase by $4,900 a year. I commend this disallowance motion to the Senate.