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Peter Dunne: former Minister on whether we need to make changes to MP allowances · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Another case of an MP claiming the accommodation allowance in Wellington,
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  Speaker 2: but in even more questionable circumstances. This involves New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: First MP Andy Foster. It's been revealed he's claimed tens
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  Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars to live in Wellington when he
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  Speaker 2: has owned a house in Karori and Wellington for twenty
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  Speaker 2: six years. Because he's lived in Wellington for decades he
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  Speaker 2: was the mayor there. Former United Future leader Peter Dnner's
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  Speaker 2: with us on this.
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  Speaker 1: Hi, Peter, Hi haveever?
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  Speaker 2: I mean this looks like a straight out rule, isn't it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, there are two things about this. I mean
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  Speaker 3: the first thing is MPs should be recompensed for legitimate
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  Speaker 3: accommodation costs occurred while they are are required to be
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  Speaker 3: in Wellington. That's quite different. Which is the second point
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  Speaker 3: from living in your own house that you've paid for
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  Speaker 3: over the years and then suddenly claiming an accommodation allowance
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  Speaker 3: for it. I think that's where the distinction is. And
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  Speaker 3: in the cases that have come to light, it seems
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  Speaker 3: that the rules just being applied across the board without
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  Speaker 3: any reasonable understanding of the fact that it's not about
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  Speaker 3: helping people father their nest from their homes in Wellington.
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  Speaker 3: It's about making sure they get reasonable accommodation when they're living,
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  Speaker 3: when they're living and working here.
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  Speaker 2: Does he have a defense that he has bought himself
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  Speaker 2: a nice little country house and wire a rapper what
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  Speaker 2: many of us would call our holiday home, and he
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  Speaker 2: now plans to live presumably live there in quotation marks
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  Speaker 2: and run in a seat. There is that a fair defense.
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  Speaker 3: This is the difficulty because the way the rules work
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  Speaker 3: is you have to declare a primary place of residence
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  Speaker 3: and you simply nominate my wire a wrapper home or
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  Speaker 3: whatever home to be that. It's quite convenient that that
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  Speaker 3: then makes your Wellington home your non primary place of
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  Speaker 3: residents and you can consequently claim an allowance for that.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's where the problem lies and that's what
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  Speaker 3: needs to be tidied up, because I think it clearly
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  Speaker 3: to most people's minds, you would say, look fair enough
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  Speaker 3: if you're required to commute to Wellington each week to
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  Speaker 3: get some accommodation, to some recompense for that, but not
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  Speaker 3: fair enough to simply turn your own home into your
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  Speaker 3: home away from home in well income when you've lived
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  Speaker 3: there for most of your life.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder. I am certainly of the view that the
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  Speaker 2: whole thing needs an overhaul. It needs a good looking at,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's the accommodation allowance or the extremely generation generous
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  Speaker 2: superannuation scheme, just the whole lot, all the perks need
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  Speaker 2: a good look at.
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  Speaker 3: What do you think, well, the superanneration scheme. I think
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  Speaker 3: it's a bit of a misnomer because that was dealt
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  Speaker 3: to or nearly thirty years ago, the gold plated scheme.
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  Speaker 3: There's now an arrangement requiring mp to have a superanneration scheme,
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  Speaker 3: but there's no particular scheme that they have to enter.
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  Speaker 3: But I think that the question about accommodation allowances, and
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  Speaker 3: I think the question of other allowances that MPs should
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  Speaker 3: be reviewed. Because the rules are very vague. Mpce are
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  Speaker 3: required to do all sorts of things. Some are blind
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  Speaker 3: by the rules diligently, some work out their ways around them,
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  Speaker 3: and some don't know what the rules are so just
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  Speaker 3: blindly thunder in. So I think that there does need
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  Speaker 3: to be a clarification and certainly I think the mommodation
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  Speaker 3: one and the examples that have come to life in
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  Speaker 3: the last few days are pretty hard to justify by
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  Speaker 3: anyone's red.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Peter, thanks very much appreciating Mae. This
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  Speaker 2: Peter Dunn, former United Future leader. Now, hm, I'm sorry
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  Speaker 2: that we're going to have to cover this off because
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  Speaker 2: I thought that we had buried this particular thing, but
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  Speaker 2: apparently Mouana Pacifica is doing a Lazarus on us, so
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  Speaker 2: we will cover that off before the end of this half.
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