In my imagination, I see myself swooping in like a cape-wearing superhero to save Louise Upston.
There are many things we might want to save Louise from — hubris and hypocrisy among them.
Maybe, in her naivety and devotion to the party leadership, she is leading the way by being an early adopter of an AI companion or friend.
Who could blame her for longing for some loyal and unquestioning chum to gee her up on those lonely nights when the parliamentary day is over, the social media bile is flowing, and the wind is whistling around her apparently mortgage-free digs in Wellington?
The thrill of counting her lucky stars or whatever few dollars are left over from her $1000 taxpayer contribution to her accommodation costs each week might pall at such times.
(I can relate to that need for someone to boost your flagging spirits. I could have done with an AI companion at the weekend when I leapt out of the shower at the hotel and was confronted with a mirror. Why is such mirror placement allowed? Something resembling the saggy baggy elephant or the very hungry caterpillar (after years of feasting) was accosting my eyeballs through the steam. An AI companion could have told me convincingly how beautiful it is to look like a puffer jacket when you are naked.)
If Louise had any fleeting doubts what she was doing was right regarding her tax-free housing allowance (which exceeds the annual taxable income of many of us), her AI companion could quickly dispel them.
‘‘Louise, everybody knows you are merely acting within the rules, just as the Prime Minister was early in the term when he was claiming the allowance, and as many other MPs do.
‘‘You are entitled to the entitlements. It is not fair for people to say you are being entitled full stop,’’ the AI companion might say.
It would not remind her that after the furore over the PM defending being entitled to his entitlement to live in a Wellington house he owned rather than Premier House, he called it a distraction, stopped claiming the allowance and paid back the money he had received to date.
The AI companion would not be finished yet.
‘‘After all, you didn’t choose the rate. The Remuneration Authority did. People who whinge about this stuff must understand it would not be fair for Members of Parliament to choose their own salaries and allowances because you would all have a stake in the outcome — and probably a fillet steak or two in it too’’. (The AI companion is working on its jokes.)
The AI companion would never wonder why, if that is true, is it OK that MPs, many of whom own rental properties, are allowed to make decisions which might benefit landlords?
Should there be an independent body to make those calls, or alternatively, a requirement that all those who have a financial interest in the outcome of such decisions declare an interest and recuse themselves from the decision-making?
It would be interesting to see how either of those options might have affected decisions on tax breaks for landlords.
Also, the one where state housing tenants will pay an average of an extra $31 a week from next year (around the cost of a couple of $15 pre Budget Day paua pies) so it can be given to boost the allowances for those receiving accommodation supplements in rental properties.
Another plan will raise the proportion of income low earning house owners must spend on housing costs before they qualify for assistance, from 30% to 40%.
Louise wants taxpayer money to go to renters, she has said, ‘‘not people who are using taxpayer support to increase their own asset’’.
Hmmm. If similar rules were to apply to Louise’s eligibility for taxpayer housing assistance, she would have to be spending around $128,240 before the taxpayer came to her rescue.
Her AI companion would not make the obvious point Parliament made the laws under which the Remuneration Authority operates and it also has the power to amend such laws.
Lumpy caterpillar superhero me would make Louise ditch her sycophantic hallucinating AI companion and suggest she develop some political intelligence instead.
At the very least, that would involve forgoing the $52,000 allowance, and urgently lobbying MPs to call for a freeze on their salaries and to insist their housing allowances only apply to actual costs.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
