Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, August 1st, 2009 - 160 comments
Categories: corruption, national/act government -
Tags: bill english, roger douglas
NZPA reports:
Taxpayers are contributing nearly $1000 a week to allow deputy prime minister Bill English to live in his own million-dollar Wellington home.
According to the title, the Karori home was bought by Mr English and his wife, Mary, for $800,000 in 2003. However, in March this year the title was transferred to Mrs English alone.
Mary English is a GP in Wellington, their kids go to school there, Bill spends most of his time there. The house in Karori is, in reality, his primary home. Yet he is claiming $1000 a week to live there from the Wellington accommodation allowance. That allowance is meant to compensate non-Wellington-based ministers for the costs of accommodation in the city arising from the need to be there for their work. The Englishes own their Karori home regardless.
National is claiming that it’s not a breach of the rules. Even if that’s the case, it’s clearly a rort and clearly unethical. The movement of ownership out of his name has obviously been done to facilitate the rort.
In 2000, Marian Hobbs and Phillida Bunkle lost their ministerial warrants for a similar rort of the Wellington accommodation allowance. The expenses scandal that has shaken the UK Parliament and seen a number of resignations has also centred around MPs rorting the system around housing allowances.
English doesn’t see anything wrong in his behaviour. Key, no doubt, will be ‘relaxed’.
Once again, we see the Key Government has one rule for themselves and another for the rest of us. At a time when they’re demanding the public accept cutbacks in services, attacking solo mums raising their kids on low incomes while trying to get off the benefit, and joking that there’s no pixie dust to help unemployed they’ve got their noses planted firmly in the public trough themselves.
As dodgy behaviour from minister after minister comes to light, this Key government is rapidly gaining a reputation for corruption and sleaze.
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Scoopit!
since you dont understand felix.the green party set up a trust which all its mps belong to they use the same money that bill gets to rent flats to themselfs which they also own.do understand now felix or is that still to hard for you.rember no abuse as it is againist the policy
Sentences, graham, or no talkie talkie.
Something about them elves what the Greens own . . away with with fairies obviously.
the superfund owns the houses, they rent from that fund. Nothing wrong with that. The alternative would be renting from someone else – the taxpayer funds get spent either way.
It’s not wellington resident MPs living in their family home claiming an out of town allowance like English is.
Well, according to what Audrey Young says in the NZ Herald”:
So, only mediated evidence via the Herald, but “frequently visits” have to be the significant words.
And I can’t imagine he leaves the property vacant for weeks on end when he, his partner, and his kids are all living in Wellignton without getting some income from it.
That’s how Tories operate. But just my speculation – I have no hard evidence it is being rented.
All the same, I think the big story in this is the undeclared pecuniary interest in the property in Karori that I Iinked to above. Lying in a Parliamentary declaration surely has to require a Minister to resign.
The mafia doesn’t believe there is such an entity. Al Capone believed he was a
benefactor to the American population.
Roger and Bill live in a similar blissful state.
I do think they really believe their own words.John’s pretty relaxed about it though.
I suggest Roger deseves a 100% subsidy but only on one way tickets.
This is disgusting – it’s just one perk of many and more than most of us earn in a week!
Does he frequently visit the electorate or frequently visit the Dipton Home?
This is fascinating.
There are at this stage 82 comments and only three anti comments from two obviously delusional wingnuts.
The silence is deafeaning. What can this mean?
Can we now start to use the C word?
oob already started that a while back.
Oh hang on, which c word do you mean?
CORRUPT! You c***!
Christchurch where the are gathered
United in their
Nasty, narcissistic, numpty
Tory
Stupidity.
I wonder how many TIA’s that wee binge could have paid for.
BLiP hilarious. but um, can we leave out the language?
fair nuff – apologies to anyone offended.
sorry about the c word earlier I was pissed off (what a silly bunt)
However from the Herald
So because he choose to have 6 kids it cost the tax payer more money eh
much like a certain beneficiary Eh ?
Breeding for a business?
“because every sperm is sacred….”
captcha: drop hehehehehe
Anyone know if the house in Southland is rented out ?
He is registered on the electoral roll as Mr Simon William English Strongyle, 179 English Road, Dipton, 9791 – 03 2485066 / Elec: Clutha-Southland.
But that still doesn’t mean he actually lives there at all.
there are rules around residency for electoral roll purposes – there was a case of a recount involving Wyatt Creach (I think) where the court decided that, contrary to what everyone had understood, students must enrol to vote in the electorate they are living in when the election happens, not their ‘home’ where their parents live, which they might actually not go to often.
If English’s ‘residence’ of Clutha-Southland involves nothing more than owning a farm that he leases out, well, that might be trouble for him.
What electorate are the English’s registered to vote in? If it is Ohariu does that confirm that Wellington is their home?
MikeG, if it is Ohariu, then he owns a second house, because Karori is in Wellington Central.
L
ok – I was under the impression that Karori was Ohariu. Many years ago Ohariu was primarily the old Karori electorate.
Bah Mr. English, Southlanders will be very disappointed. I can’t see National being able to spin this at all. /late Typical drunken Southland wedding hooray.
The silence of the sheep has been noticed:
http://poneke.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/h/
National must be in serious trouble if they still can’t sort out their spin, a whole day after the story broke.
Hey does this home have a moat that needs cleaning by any chance?
$1000 a week, great coin if you can get it aye! I have to love “I have done this to keep my family together” please, what a bloody wrought!
Bloody beneficiaries scamming the system taking our hard earned tax payers dollars,outrageous!
From Cactus Cates blog:
English’s office states:
The spokesman said taxpayers could have faced a higher bill if Mr English had opted to rent elsewhere at current market rates.
Mr English’s spokesman said there was “no formal upper limit set on rental payments, but Ministerial Services had set an informal limit for rental costs of around $700 a week”.
I’m glad the fucking wanker didn’t own a house worth 2-3 million and have already fleeced us of more due to the “No formal upper limit!”
The Prick must GO
Akldnut
OK, hypothetical time.
English is not the only MP that has ever done this. Do we hunt down all and get rid of them as well or do we just set English for the high jump – for working within the rules. It would seem unfair to just punish English because others have been doing it to. Perhaps we should just validate an unknown amount of this sort of expenditure and change the expenditure reporting to exclude accommodation expenses. Parliamentary services will be all a flutter so we will need to do this quickly.
Sorry burt, did you just say “because others have been doing it too”?
That’s awesome.
felix
Yes I framed it like the defense of Clark/Labour was framed – pathetic wasn’t it.
It’s no different to anything else you’ve ever typed here burt.
Really ? Is that the best answer you have to being caught shooting yourself in the foot. Did you not understand the word ‘hypothetical’ felix ?
Oh I see that went over your wee head.
I was pointing out that your attempt at parody is more self-parody than anything else – indistinguishable from the tripe you usually write.
Poor thing. Must be hard being the only person in NZ defending your hero.
Burt
At the end of the day its a rort that hes been snapped doing and if there are others in the same boat then they should go too!!!
I would also not put it past this govt to make a retrospective ruling to try and shift the point of attack to previous govts to cover their arses.
Its pathetic that there’s an allowance for this that they take willingly while an allowance for less fortunate (with better results for the people of NZ) is scraped. And then the less fortunate are persecuted by the fucking hypocrites
The facts about Bill English and his “expenses” was brought to you courtesy of a new standard of openness and accountability.
A new standard of openness and accountability has quite a catchy ring to it – why didn’t Labour think of that…. dooh!
Of course – Labour bad!
Took a while and he had to squint, but there it is. Well done, burt.
Oh and burt, did you hear? Bill English is cheating the public by charging us $1000 a week to live in his own house. Awesome, eh?
felix
To be honest I don’t see this very differently from the likes of the property trusts run by other political parties with multiple properties leased out to parliamentary services.
elaborate.
you’re not just talking about the greens who rent from the superfund, rather than renting from a private landloard are you?
because that’s totally different, those mps aren’t living in wellington and claiming on their primary home. they could just by the properties themselves and claim the cost of the mortgages but they have the fund because they know most of them won’t still be mps needing a place in wellington in 25 years.
It’s pretty simple actually burt – see if you can spot the difference between:
a) renting a house from an actual trust, and
b) calling yourself a trust so you can rent your own house from yourself.
(There’s another substantive difference too, but I’ll wait until you’ve got your head around that one I think.)
Yes I understand the difference felix.
In one case you build a personal asset with the help of tax payer money pouring into MP accommodation. In the other example you build a personal asset with the help of tax payer money pouring into MP accomodation.
If you seriously think it is different in principle rather than just slightly different in implementation then you have less between the ears than I previous thought.
Personal? Really? Still having trouble distinguishing an actual trust from a pretend one eh burt?
Hint: the beneficiaries.
Define a pretend trust felix. Is that like the one Winston used and was legal therefore OK ?
I’m not going any further with this till you define pretend and real because it seems some imaginary classification of the trusts being real or pretend has allowed you to find a difference between the two situations.
You’re not going any further anyway, burt – you never do. It’s just round and round the same old hogwash with you.
If you don’t know what a pretend trust is I can’t help you.
To clarify: I don’t care if what your hero is doing is legal or not, so don’t waste your time trying to make legal equivalences.
You do know what a trust is though, don’t you burt?
felix
Rest assured I know a bit about trusts. Enough to know that they are legal entities and they are valid or invalid according to a legal context not according to the ‘felix is not impressed’ test.
I think you have adequately displayed your lack of comprehension. If you were as smart as you want us to think you are you would give me a serve explaining why one is pretend and one is real as you assert.
Simple, burt.
According to the “felix is not impressed” test, a pretend trust is one where the trustees and beneficiaries are indistinguishable for all actual purposes.
You’re the only person trying to make it a legal argument burt. Everyone else sees it as a matter of right and wrong.
No felix, I’ve said I think it is wrong. You seem to be missing that and fair enough. There is more than one train of though being considered at the same times in this discussion so it must be hard for you.
You’re not difficult to follow burt.
So far what you’ve said on the topic (heh) can be summed up as:
Labour are not as transparent as the Nats, the Greens are just as bad as the Nats if not worse, and PLEASE DON”T FORGET ABOUT WINSTON!! Oh and mumble mumble it’s not a good look for Bill but it’s probably all legal so no big deal.
I think that about covers your contribution, burt. Anything you’d like to add?
Yes one thing:
You are incapable of admitting when you are wrong.
Oooh, sick burn.
Not.
Still waiting for a definition of pretend and real trusts felix. I’ll also give you a clue – that definition is not tainted by the actions of the unions in the 70′s so running personal attacks like that will not add any clarity to your position.
Look above, retard.
I defined it real simple, just for you. In “felix isn’t impressed” terms.
I’ve got better things to do than this. Like watch a doco about Kinski.
You could just admit that the principle of property in a trust leased to PS is the same irrespective of the technicality of living in that same house or receiving tax payers money to live in some other house. I agree there is less ‘arms length’ in English’s case but there is only marginal arms length in the other cases and apparently you are more concerned about the right/wrong than the legal/illegal.
Burt concedes English is in the wrong and wouldn’t have been caught if it weren’t for the new transparency rules led by the Greens.
Thanks Burt
Maty G.
Completely agree. I’m glad the will of the Green party has finally come to fruition.
It easier to just say brought to you courtesy of the GReens
Herald on Sunday claim that it was their efforts that lead to the disclosures. Take that!
This is a comment from cactus kates blog
Burt The facts about Bill English and his “expenses’ was brought to you courtesy of a new standard of openness and accountability.
Thx Burt – Could you pass the name & address on to me of the person who bought all this out into open. I’d like to send a thankyou letter.
Huh WTF???
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
1st Floor, 16-20 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington
PO Box 11-652, Wellington, New Zealand
Phone: 04-801 5102
Fax: 04-801 5104
Email: greenparty@greens.org.nz
The way you’ve put a spin on it, it was all thanks to National.
Defend the indefensible
Akldnut
Yes thanks to the Green’s for pusing that – no argument there.
Perhaps before you make the weakest spin attempt I have ever seen and try and say I’m defending the indefensible (while I bag English for this) you could ponder just a millisecond why it took a National govt to make this happen. Then after that millisecond you could ponder how fabulous the glorious self serving non disclosure Labour party really were and stfu making ridiculous assertions that I’m defending this.
the glorious self serving non disclosure Labour party
Your grasp on reality is as gloriously one eyed and tenuous as ever Burt. Only one major party is publicly open with its accounts, and that party is Labour:
Any claims from National to be the “open” ones are the height of hypocrisy:
So this new openness that you think National is such a big fan of Burt – why don’t National open their books like Labour? What dirty secrets are they hiding?
rOb
You might want to ask a National supporter those questions. You seem to have me confused with someone who will defend them.
I’m happy about the disclosure and I have highlighted how it is a new standard of openness and accountability but I’m in no way saying it is complete openness and accountability.
If you a feeling defensive because Labour would not even release this level of detail then I’m sorry that is not my problem – look in the mirror for what standards you support before deflecting your own disappointment onto someone else.
So what dirty secrets do you think National is hiding in their closed accounts Burt? Do you care? Are you going to be calling for them to open their books like Labour? Better get on to it…
Good point r0b.
burt, if there were ever a time to call for openness and transparency from National, this is it.
If you don’t do it now, you never will.
I think you are confusing what is wrong but within the rules and what is wrong because it is illegal. I’m not surprised as being Labour supporters you have made an art form of blurring those lines for expediency. Me, I’m less worried about what the MP’s do within the rules and more concerned about the rules themselves and the MP’s who break them then validate themselves – because they can and because partisan hacks will run cover for them.
I must say though, it is great watching defenders of appallingly low standards in one party scream for high standards in another. Keep it up guys, you are gold.
I’m not confused about that, burt. I don’t care if it’s legal, I do care that your hero Bill is taking an extra $1000 a week from all of us for living in his own house.
You might as well get back to banging on about how bad Labour is though burt, you’re making a bosh of defending the Nats.
Oh, a quick scan of frog blog would also find I have commended the greens for disclosure before – but hey, why would you want to know what you are talking about – it’s a liability to do that when defending Labour.
But, why are you defending National and it’s closed books if you like openness so much?
Because the unions went on strike in the 70s and it ruined his holiday.
Have you got a link where I support National rorting the system?
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS A WEEK!!!!111!!!!
I work 50 hours plus and only pull in half that, glad to see my tax dollars paying for more police, nurses, operations and the English family to live in a house they already own.
Next you will be telling me his kids go to Catholic Schools that just suckled up to the $35 million that the Nat govt just handed out to them.
This is truly aspirational for NZ beneficiaries, this is how you claim your ENTITLEMENTS!!!!!!!
SinceAudrey Young put Bills kids schools and his wifes work in the public domain I await with baited breath the release of details as to how much the kids fees are how much the wife earns and the tax paid and claimed on the school fees and the LAQC that the house must be in, also the IRD file on the legality of Mr English’s house in trust renting back to himself (as legality is questionable)
I suspect the right wing outrage ‘always the victim all the time’ machine will reach maximum spin velocity tomorrow, with howls of ‘but, but Labour did it 9 years ago waaaah, waaaah.
Capcha: grants
$1000 per week, that would pay for the special needs kid to get the in school help, (throws up in mouth) so much for that great catholic tradition of helping the poor!!!!
English must be kicking himself for another bad decision that overshadowed his party’s conference. Last year he ‘misspoke’ about the Nat’s secret agenda on tape and this year he got caught with his snout in the trough. His chances of leadership have to be getting slimmer every year.
And, what an own goal from Key on his timing. I bet he is kicking himself for choosing to release the allowance info just ahead of his grand conference entrance.
How arrogant can he be?
Did he think the media weren’t smart enough to pick up on the English rort? Or, more likely, did he just see nothing wrong with it, because he makes the rules now?
You complain about $1,000 wasted a week when there are Billions wasted in unnecessary moochers and unnecessary bureaucracy. If you actually cared about government waste you would find millions a week wasted without much effort. You don’t really care about government waste, you just want to attack your political opponents. Get a grip on reality, gain some integrity.
You complain about unnecessary moochers and unnecessary bureaucracy when all along Bill English is ripping off the public purse for $1,000 a week. If you actually cared about government waste you would find a grand a week wasted without any effort. You don’t really care about government waste, you just want to attack your political opponents. Get a grip on reality, gain some integrity.
How can we as a nation cut waste when the very people who we recently elected ‘to set a higher standard’ and be better at managing the public purse are rorting the system. Its as good a place as any to start cutting the waste.
Not very aspirational is it?
Integrity is a bit over rated, ask Roger Douglas.
Nobody’s managed to find such wasted billions yet. Hell, National even had to close it’s wastewatch site because of the total lack of waste.
I look forward to the coming period of high entertainment as all our glorious politicians try to defend themselves over spending on this and spending on that.
We have already enjoyed seeing Roger Douglas score in the negatives for his initial defence..
And now English..
Out here in Punterland we will scrutinise and come to instantly quick decisions about whether a particular spend is justified or not.. And you know what? Those decisions will mostly be right on the button. Possums in the headlights here we come… yahoooo………..
Open season on politicians may be fun, and critical comment may be appropriate, but it is usually the Right that gains from any destabilisation of the democratic process. So, one ought to be very clear about the difference between a political system that may require adjustment, and a wholesale bagging of the democratic model. Perhaps a degree of perspective is called for across the political spectrum on this issue?
I think Mrs English has the rawest deal .
She only gets 1000$ per week to live with Bill English
doesn’t seem much too me
Maybe she can get him to move in with Paula – she must have the space.
I was just considering the words justice, fairness and equity.
I have a dilemma.
For I am told that a person losing their job gets no dole if their partner has a minimum wage job. They are supposed to live on $25,000 (before tax) for two people. This is little more than the dole which would be about $19,000 for two people over 25. They might get an accomodation supplement if they were renting or paying a mortgage – but this would not cover some of the initial cost and then only a proportion of the rest and only up to a maximum claim limit.
Why is the income of Bill English’s partner not considered?
Why is it that Mrs English cannot provide for the housing needs of herself and her partner and their children on her own doctors salary. Do doctors not earn enough to do so? She is a GP in Wellington is she not? Her family live with her do they not?
If not living with his wife, all Bill needs is a one flat for himself, or to share a flat with another Cabinet Minister or MP or secretary who is prepared to do the household chores (who needs a Finance Minister eating corn beef and peas and washing their own socks in a wash basin). Even in Wellington that does not cost $1000 a week (there are hotels who would charge less than that for regular guests).
If living with his wife, he needs no allowance.
Frankly that a person on near $200,000 income with a working professional partner living locally needs an out of town allowance at all is a scandal, yet it became worse when they claimed a greater amount when their salary increased to well over $200,000. That reflects badly on all those in this system who put their hand out for their entitlement and who thus consented to its continuance.
It should be income tested AND partner tested like any other government handout. There need to be some limits on the housing ambition of claimaints – only compensating for a proportion of their housing costs as for the accomodation supplement.
This system (especially when seen in comparison with what government provides to others in greater need) does not do justice, it is not fair and it is not equitable.
I am particularly angry about this . probably because of the deep financial poo I am in, through increasing my mortgage to pay for me to care for a very sick daughter for two years. I just could not to suffer the ignominy of going back Work and an Income
Blah blah rave rave
Now back at work I now struggle for take home pay less the half of what English is getting from the tax payer each week to live with his wife.
It is most unjust but then I am just bitter and twisted.
However daughter has recovered (sort of) got her degree and is off on her OE
Mean while another meal of instant noodles awaits
NOTE :On reflection I should have take a support person advocate with me to WINZ
I recommend people needing there services do the same
Hang in there OOB. There are good people in the world as well the troughers. I’m glad your daughter recovered, and I hope her OE goes well. In the end it is family that matters.