Dear Editor, Overworked? Underpaid? Daily stress trying to get the job done? And all the while still facing the weekly family financial burdens with cost of living, inflation, etc.

Professional responsibilities developed along the way, with often an entire lifetime spent dedicated to their jobs, and well beyond the abilities of most people. And no! We are NOT talking about politicians. We are talking about teachers, nurses, police – these people are at the forefront of our daily lives and their responsibilities are endless. They are the ones who are overworked and underpaid.

Politicians just imagine they work hard, apart from their massive pay packets, even the lowest paid backbencher gets paid about $1500 per week. Yes, that’s right, per week (plus allowances), while those MPs who have been promoted to Associate Minister status, full Minister status, as well as DPM, are paid much, much more than that per week. The PM is on about $3000 per week plus allowances, including clothing, free vehicles, home allowance subsidy, free phone and internet, etc, etc. Totally obscene situation compared to most of the struggling iti tangata, who might be taking home $400-$600 per week and if they are renting, more than half of that is gone immediately.

Yes, go and grow fruit and veggies in your spare time, and sell on the side of the road to support your hard work and limited income (Nice advice PM). And now these very well-paid MPs don’t even want to front up to Parliament … they are looking for Proxy votes so they can take off for the day, go fishing, fly to NZ, or whatever. Incredible!

Clearly, they have already forgotten that their primary job is to be the representative of their constituents in Parliament, and look after those iti Tangata, not themselves!

On top of all that, now the Government wants to increase the number of Cabinet members from 6 to 8, and the Hon. (Tingika) Elikana assures us this will ONLY add some $1.5 million to the cost of running Government. How about the Parliament votes that extra $1.5 million or so for much more generous Budget allocations to those Ministries mentioned above, which impact our daily lives, and perhaps then we will see a turnaround in many of the problems and issues that confront all of us in our daily lives.

(Name and address supplied)