Whanganui District Council has rejected a switch to an attendance-component to their salary. Because making sure that councillors actually do the job we are paying them to do would be a Bad Thing, apparently.
The arrogance on display here is appalling. Here we have a local body basically saying that they should be paid whether or not they actually do their jobs. They wouldn't accept that logic as employers, and neither should we.
One of the opponents did have a point in saying that not all work takes place around the council table, but that's why its an attendance component. They'd get paid for their representative role, and they'd get paid for their formal, legislative one. The problem here is that some councillors are shirking on the latter - and shortchanging voters in the process.
