Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, September 8th, 2011 - 23 comments
Chris Carter’s egocentric valedictory earlier this week didn’t exactly cover him in glory. Whether it should ever have gotten to this point is another matter. It’s interesting to review the evolving views of Standard authors on the issue. Did Carter do this to himself or did mismanagement from the leadership escalate the situation?This guest post takes the second view.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, June 16th, 2011 - 30 comments
Ianupnorth does ‘the Whale’ and has a dig around the National Party websites. It turns out they are registered and run by Parliamentary staffers. In fact, National and ACT’s MPs’ sites are all publicly-funded, while other parties’ MPs’ are not. Is NACT breaking the rules? No doubt everyone’s least favourite cetacean will be on to it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, June 3rd, 2011 - 13 comments
After intense criticism for using government-owned helicopters for personal trips, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has reimbursed the state for the cost of the flights. I look forward to John Key following Christie’s lead and repaying us for his flights to watch the V8s in Hamilton.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, May 6th, 2011 - 13 comments
The out of touchness, she burns! In a few short replies, the Nats said so much this week. The stories of perk abuse have been rolling out almost too fast, in fact. Each needs following up, each minister needs to be hounded, but there are so many targets. The galling thing is in a fortnight the Nats will tell us ‘everyone has to tighten their belts’.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, December 10th, 2010 - 11 comments
The Auditor-General seems certain to launch an investigation into the Wongs’ taxpayer-funded travel as even more evidence shows the Parliamentary report isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. A majority of Kiwis want her to resign. Why John Key hasn’t already called on the A-G to investigate, as he did with Phil Heatley, is beyond me.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, November 3rd, 2010 - 10 comments
Last week Speaker Lockwood Smith rolled back transparency on MPs expenses, by making travel spending secret again. John Key came out “against” the move. Yesterday Labour and the Greens called his bluff by releasing their details. Over to you John, once again you’re too late to lead, but you can still follow…
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, July 4th, 2010 - 7 comments
David Farrar leapt to a “they did it too” defence of the taxpayer-funded ‘survey’ that National MPs are sending to selected voters around the country. I reckon he wrote the questions. It was Farrar’s dodgy polling that convinced National to run Melissa Lee as the candidate in Mt Albert. I guess Lee getting caught out with a dodgy ‘survey’ is just Farrar’s reverse midas touch striking again.
Written By: - Date published: 1:19 am, July 1st, 2010 - 58 comments
A reader sent us these images of an addressed ‘survey’ he received in the mail from Melissa Lee. It makes interesting reading because it’s not actually an attempt to gather our opinions to inform National’s policies. It’s a cynical attempt to influence our views while pretending to care what we think. And the Nats are using our money to fund it.
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, June 23rd, 2010 - 90 comments
It is good to cast light on ministers putting personal spending on the taxpayer but the media is attacking legitimate spending too. As a result, MPs are being prevented from doing their jobs properly for fear of appearing profligate. Is this the desired effect of the chill wind blowing from the media on our representatives’ expenses, that even John Key warned about?
Written By: - Date published: 12:10 am, June 16th, 2010 - 45 comments
Details on PEDA are still very thin but it is increasingly looking like public money has been hijacked to help the political prospects of National’s Pacific Islanders. The service delivery aspect of the Pacific Island Affairs Ministry seems set to be turned over to this private organisation. The lack of honest answers from the minister only deepens the suspicion that something very dodgy is afoot.
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 pm, June 13th, 2010 - 142 comments
Phil Goff is back in the country and, as predicted, his first move is going to be to take their portfolios off Shane Jones, Chris Carter, and, probably, Mita Ririnui for their misuse of their credit cards. The attention will now turn to the abuses of those who haven’t been punished for their wasteful and greedy use of public money – Tim Groser, Murray McCully, Nathan Guy, Nick Smith, and Bill English. Updated
Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, June 10th, 2010 - 179 comments
The credit card records of the ex-Labour ministers are out. Phil Goff has made it clear that any money claimed outside the rules must be repaid and some wrongful claims were paid back at the time. The test the Auditor-General set after Phil Heatley’s bizarre resignation over $70 worth of wine is whether claims intentionally breach the rules.
Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, May 5th, 2010 - 26 comments
You’ll remember how Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English was caught claiming the out of town allowance for living in his family home in Wellington. As a half-arsed solution, out of town ministers are now limited to claiming $37,500 a year for their Wellington accommodation. So, how come eight ministers are still claiming far more than that?
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, April 7th, 2010 - 22 comments
I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, March 31st, 2010 - 26 comments
The Auditor-General has found that Phil Heatley wrongly bought $1,402 worth of private goods and services on his ministerial and MP tabs. That’s OK according to the PM because Heatley didn’t intend to break the rules. Well, I guess that’s OK then. Of course, you have to assume that Heatley is a total idiot in that case.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, March 5th, 2010 - 32 comments
It’s pretty rare that I agree with John Key but he got it right when he voiced concern that journalists are attacking MPs for legitimately using their budgets to do their jobs. Do we really want to force parties to rely on private funding for communicating their positions? That makes politics a rich man’s game. There are plenty of actual rip-offs and rorts for the media to root out.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, March 2nd, 2010 - 60 comments
Labour’s ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign has hit the road. Phil Goff is travelling around New Zealand explaining why Labour opposes National’s plan to hike GST on everyone to pay for tax cuts that will primarily go to the well-off. National are worried. They’re not promoting their package anymore, they’re lashing out at Goff.
Written By: - Date published: 6:54 pm, February 27th, 2010 - 13 comments
No, it’s not one of the Nats or their hangers-on. It’s Shane Jones. Following revelations that National ministers have been essentially stealing taxpayer money by using their ministerial credit cards for prohibited purchases, Jones has recounted an incident from his time as a minister. When Jones was Building Minister in 2008 he hosted a dinner …
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, February 27th, 2010 - 20 comments
Fran O’Sullivan agrees with my theory on the real reason for Phil Heatley’s resignation and the reason why an excuse was invented. The real reason was what amounts to Heatley’s theft of taxpayer money by using his ministerial credit card, and the receipt excuse was invented to protect Gerry Brownlee who had also misused his credit card
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, February 26th, 2010 - 84 comments
Ministers don’t resign for describing a trivial expense in a perfectly legitimate way. I’m thinking Phil Heatley really had a crisis of conscience over the credit card ‘misuse’ and wanted to resign but that would have put Gerry Brownlee in the gun too. So they invented the receipt excuse. What’s your theory?
Written By: - Date published: 6:42 am, February 24th, 2010 - 40 comments
Yesterday the Dominion Post caught out National Party Ministers using their taxpayer funded credit cards for personal use. This was a gross betrayal of public trust. Housing Minister Phil Heatley knew what he was doing, but did it anyway. John Key should sack Heatley for turning his nose up at the Kiwi taxpayer.
Written By: - Date published: 4:42 pm, December 8th, 2009 - 17 comments
Ministers are given self-drive taxpayer-funded cars for official business in their electorates (in Wellington they have crown limos at their disposal for official business). Pretty logically, the cars were always based at the ministers’ primary place of residence because that’s where they would need it. But that presented a problem for Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English. …
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, November 9th, 2009 - 19 comments
Earlier this year, John Key stated: “I’ve told [my ministers] if they want to take their partner, they can do it, but they pay for it’. It emerged last week that Rodney Hide, Peter Dunne, David Carter, Phil Heatley and, it is thought, Maurice Williamson and Judith Collins had used taxpayer funds to pay for their spouses’ …
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 3rd, 2009 - 24 comments
Just saw this in the SST. Hide on the spousal travel allowance: This perk is wrong, I’ve never agreed with it So why claim it? If you don’t think it’s right, it’s not ethical to do it. ‘Meat is murder, but as you’ve killed the animals anyway…’ I had the opportunity for this trip and …
Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, November 3rd, 2009 - 21 comments
Yesterday, John Key cleverly tried to reframe his ministers’ failure to obey his standards on use of perks: “You don’t want 120 Members of Parliament who have the financial independence to be able to make the financial decisions that I make. “It wouldn’t be the House of Representatives, we need people from all walks of …
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, October 30th, 2009 - 26 comments
I’m sure you noticed Hide’s latest shenanigans - getting his partner taxpayer subsidised international flights despite Key’s directive not to. Key (surprise, surprise) is ‘comfortable’ with this because Hide used Parliamentary not Ministerial funds. Hide was taking a jaunt around London and Toronto to see other ‘Supercities’ close-up (unfortunately, he ignored the lessons). It was a ministerial trip but we paid …
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, October 29th, 2009 - 16 comments
Why is our agriculture minister spending as much as the Prime Minister on international travel? David Carter has spent $72,000 on international travel in nine months Peter Dunne, Minister of Revenue, has spent $76,000 Judith Collins, $70K. Anne Tolley $79,000. 70-80K each – we’re talking about enough money to buy half a dozen last minute …
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, October 23rd, 2009 - 6 comments
One thing about love is that what you abhor or hate in others you tolerate, even admire, in the object of your affection. Take the media’s handling of Parliament going into Urgency. When Labour filibustered over the second Auckland Supercity Bill, there were articles in the newspapers and snide remarks from news commentators about the …
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 1 comment
Following my post yesterday, toad on g.blog raises some questions about Nick Smith’s expense claims: In the Dompost article, Nick Smith said “I had to spend $152,000 to make [his electoral office, which he owns] usable I don’t dispute that. But who paid the $152,000? Was it Smith personally? Or was at least some of it from a …
Written By: - Date published: 5:18 pm, October 4th, 2009 - 115 comments
The Greens have a superannuation fund. That’s fine. It has investments in a couple of houses. That’s fine. The Green MPs have to rent somewhere to live when they’re in Wellington. They claim the out of town allowance to cover those costs, which is what the allowance is for. So, that’s fine. Three of the …
Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, October 1st, 2009 - 57 comments
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