No MP pay rises until essential workers get one first.

• The pay freeze for parliamentarians is due to end this year, with a hefty pay rise forecasted.
• The fact is when this announcement was made that Members of Parliament would receive a pay rise, in the middle of an election where the cost-of-living crisis is the biggest issue according to politicians, not one of them made mention of the hypocrisy and contradiction of them all receiving a pay rise but not our essential workers.
• We have a swath of essential workers including police, doctors, nurses, paramedics, midwives, corrections officers, and teachers, who are all under sustained pressure just to keep up with affording basics, and who are being forced to look for better pay and conditions overseas.
• One of the reasons we have a ‘squeezed middle’ is out of touch politicians and bureaucrats sitting in Wellington talking platitudes from their ivory towers.
• Kiwis already think the representatives sitting in the Beehive are out of touch – and this announcement, unchallenged by any of them, proves it.
• New Zealand First policy is: Members of Parliament should receive their pay rise only after our essential frontline workers have been adequately compensated with their own pay rises first.