By: Dr. Vinko Gorenak
When I was a member of the National Assembly, people often asked me what an MP actually does. Superficial observers will tell you that MPs do nothing – that they argue and debate for a high salary, and that is it. I cannot fully agree with this view. I have often shared my thoughts on parliamentary work, saying: “Being an MP allows one to work a lot, but the job itself does not require it.” And this is close to the truth.
An MP can either work tirelessly or simply sit quietly in the parliamentary seat, do little to nothing, and vote as instructed by the parliamentary group leader – without any independent thought. Both the hardworking MP and the inactive one earn roughly the same salary. To generalise, the average MP earns around €3,500 net per month, including allowances. This is certainly not a small salary – it may not be excessive for those who work hard, but it is far too high for those who do little or nothing.
A recent article on Nova24TV prompted me to research MPs’ activity levels online. The core duties of an MP include studying various materials, participating in debates, and voting. However, their activity can also be measured by the number of parliamentary questions and initiatives they submit to the government or ministers. I used this metric to assess individual MPs.
By the number of questions and initiatives submitted to the government, the absolute leader is Jelka Godec, head of the SDS parliamentary group, who has submitted 432 such items. The average MP has submitted 52. Many MPs have not submitted a single question or initiative. The MP with the highest number of spoken words in the National Assembly is one of the youngest MPs, Andrej Hoivik (SDS), who has spoken 664,164 words during this term. The average number of spoken words per MP is 186,503. Now, let’s look at the least active MPs. The lowest levels of parliamentary engagement are found among MPs from the Gibanje Svoboda party. According to publicly available data from the National Assembly, the MPs who have spoken the least are: Jernej Žnidaršič, Aleš Lipičnik, Katarina Štravs, Gašper Ovnik, and Branko Zlobko. However, to be fair, Žnidaršič, Lipičnik, and Zlobko were not MPs from the start of this term (May 13th, 2022) but took office later as substitute MPs. Therefore, for accuracy, we will only consider those who have been in parliament since the beginning of this term.
By this measure, the MP who has spoken the least is Katarina Štravs (Gibanje Svoboda), who has spoken 10,500 words in total. She is followed by Gašper Ovnik (Gibanje Svoboda) with 11,888 words. (For comparison, the average MP has spoken 186,503 words, while Andrej Hoivik has spoken 664,164.)
MPs from SDS are also the most active in submitting questions and initiatives. 25 SDS MPs submitted 2,933 questions and initiatives to the government and ministers. 41 Gibanje Svoboda MPs submitted only 310. As mentioned earlier, Jelka Godec is the leader in this regard with 432 submitted questions and initiatives. The average MP has submitted 52, while Katarina Štravs has submitted only 6, and Gašper Ovnik only 5. Some MPs have not submitted any.
Finally, let’s consider salaries and these numbers. Given an average net salary (including allowances) of €105,000 per MP from May 13th, 2022, to the end of 2024: Katarina Štravs has effectively earned €10.00 per spoken word. Andrej Hoivik has earned just €0.16 per spoken word. Does this seem like pay based on work? It certainly does not appear so.