MPs have received an increase of 5.5 percent in their pay, Radio New Zealand reports.
The Remuneration Authority ruling increases the Prime Minister's pay from $428,500 to $452,300 a year and senior ministers' pay from $268,500 to $283,800. The pay for an MP goes up from $147,800 to $156,000.
The authority said the increase represented both a salary increase and also a percentage of MPs' pay towards travel expenses.
Prime Minister John Key said he was disappointed the authority ignored his request not to increase the pay of MPs and ministers.
“I think a pay increase that was set at zero would be appropriate given that politicians have had pay increases over the last five or six years and lots of other people haven't.”
The authority's chair John Errington told Checkpoint the Prime Minister was not ignored.
“We are required under the Act to consult with the PM and the Speaker and other people, which we did. He expressed a view, which we took into account when we made our decision. Our Act requires us to have regard to jobs of a similar size.”
Green MP Kevin Hague said his party believed the system that determined MPs' pay was not ideal.
“Where MPs actually get cost of living pay increases but there isn't that same security for everybody else and that's why we have put forward a proposal that MPs pay rises should be in fact set at the nominal increase of the median wage.”
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said politicians should be last in the queue for a pay rise.
“If you are asking me if we deserve a pay rise as much as ordinary people the answer is categorically no.”
