Tom Baxter: MPs should work only one job

State Government moves to stop MPs also working in local government were long overdue Greens Upper House candidate for Nelson, Tom Baxter, said today.

“It’s high time all MPs treated Parliament as a full-time job,” Mr Baxter said.

“We can’t afford part-time MPs when we pay them to work full-time.

“Our shrunken Parliament needs all its members on the job full-time, not working elsewhere.

“There’s a particular problem, beyond their pay, when mayors elected to Parliament continue to work both jobs.

“Serving multiple masters in two separate tiers of government causes conflicts of interest.

“How do these MPs vote when the interests of their council and those of the state conflict?”

“Low paid local councillors should be free to work elsewhere, but not also as MPs.”

When a mayor is elected to Parliament, enabling a count-back for their vacancy could provide a mayor until the next local government election, Mr Baxter added.

“A count-back for mayor, as occurs in the House of Assembly, would save the cost of a by-election,” he said.

Mr Baxter confirmed that if elected to the Upper House seat of Nelson on 4 May he would resign his job as corporate governance lecturer at UTAS.

Mr Baxter was responding to the Minister for Local Government Bryan Green’s announcement on Sunday of a local government reform package, to include an end to local government representatives simultaneously holding positions in the Upper House.

References:
1. “Power to the people”, Hannah Martin, The Mercury, 18 February 2013 includes:
Mr Green said the State Government wanted to put an end to local government members holding positions in the Upper House.
“We think both jobs are full-time,” he said.

2. “Major Local Government Reforms”, Bryan Green, Minister for Local Government, 17 February 2013.

Read more here
Tom Baxter, Upper House Candidate for Nelson