Perhaps inadvertently, Friday?s debate on politicians? salaries exposed the flaws of Bermuda?s Cabinet system.

This newspaper has generally supported the idea that Cabinet Ministers need to be paid more, and that the demands placed on Ministers are now sufficiently high that they should be full-time. Beyond the time demands, full-time posts would also eliminate the risk of conflicts of interest between the Minister?s role in Cabinet and whatever the Minister?s ?day time? job was. At the moment, very capable Bermudians are unwilling to make the financial sacrifices necessary for politics, and employers are increasingly unwilling to underwrite these careers, much to the Island?s loss.

Premier Alex Scott also took what seemed to be a sensible step last year of forming an independent committee of non-politicians to look at the whole question, thus reducing the perception that politicians were awarding themselves big pay rises.

So far so good. But Mr. Scott made an error when he set down the committee?s terms of reference to include provision for part-time and full-time Ministers, without any guidance on how the distinction should be made.

As it now stands, the decision will be up to the respective Ministers. If they wish to keep an outside job, they can, but they will have to take a lower salary. If, on the other hand, they wish to hold their Cabinet post as a full-time position, then they will get an additional $50,000 per year.

This is the worst of all worlds, in which salaries are not determined by the demands of the Cabinet post, but by the wishes ? and the abilities or lack thereof ? of the Ministers themselves.

Nowhere was this clearer than in Finance Minister Paula Cox?s speech to the House on Friday in which she exposed all of the faults of the system.

Ms Cox is generally regarded as being one of the current Government?s more able Ministers, and successive Premiers clearly have regarded her as such. Having started as Home Affairs Minister, she went on to hold the tricky Education portfolio, then held the Attorney General?s post at the same time before moving on to the biggest job ? outside of the Premier?s ? of Finance.

Ms Cox declared that when she was Education Minister and Attorney General she turned down the much higher salary that Dame Lois Browne-Evans had held as AG. When Dame Lois held the post, the justification was twofold: That practising lawyers by necessity would have to close their private practices and that the demands of the job were such that a higher salary was required.

But Ms Cox was able to retain her post as counsel for Ace Ltd., Bermuda?s biggest employer, and juggle both the Education and the Attorney General?s portfolios.

That meant that either Ms Cox either had to give at least one of those roles less attention than it deserved, or perhaps the role of AG was not as difficult as it was believed to be under Dame Lois, and presumably now is under Sen. Larry Mussenden.

Ms Cox admitted she did not want to give up her day job because any Minister serves at the pleasure of the Premier ? and, although she did not say it, the voter ? and can be out of a job tomorrow. And Ms Cox had no desire to hang out her lawyer?s shingle and start over in the event she loses her political job.

But the admission showed that the question of whether or not a Minister should be full time has much less to do with the demands of the job and much more to do with the desires of individual Ministers. This is not a sound basis for determining salaries. Either the job requires full time attention or it doesn?t. On the basis of Ms Cox?s ?evidence? in the House, there is no need for full-time salaries.

There are other issues too, not least the still unanswered questions about the effects the pay increases will have on the already under-funded parliamentary pension apparatus.

But in passing the increases, the Government has demonstrated, again, the utter selfishness of its members.