Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, May 30th, 2008 - 56 comments
Categories: election 2008, humour -
Tags:
Following a series of National Party questions to the house the Herald has discovered the Labour government has spent nearly $27K on sausage rolls since taking power in 1999. Sources inside the public service reveal that in many cases morning teas would be provided with nearly two sausage rolls per person in attendance and some sausage rolls may have contained pork.
National Party grocery spokesman John Key says the situation is disgraceful:
At a time when hardworking Kiwis are struggling to buy cheese this kind of extravagance is shameful. Rather than wasting taxpayers’ money by governing the country and badgering us for trivial information about how we would govern it, this tired third-term government should be stepping up and coming clean over just how much they know about this over the odds sausage roll spend.
Sausage-roll-gate comes hard on the heels of a series of small goods scandals for the government including last month’s discovery that the Ministry of Economic Development has infinitely increased its spending on teabags since 1998 when it did not exist.
Facebook
Twitter
Scoopit!
By my count thats less than 10 sausage rolls a day. Good work Herald, showing us how much these bastards are suckling at the teat of democracy!
Corruption! Corruption! and so on and so forth.
Captcha: Light suggested. Yeah, I guess a few members could do with a diet.
Lets not forget the $41,000 per conference that HNZ have forked out! $250,000 for SIX conferences.
Whats with the beat up anyway? $41,000 a conference is extremely cheap.
Of course it’s not going to make a difference if all the public see is “Govt Department Wastes More Money”
Never mind the fact that one conference for HNZ was cheaper than my workdo Xmas function last year for all of 45 staff.
Captcha: Great Header
Machines getting into Sarcasm. Who wuda thunk it.
Enjoy them while they are still hot boys and girls, the pie warmers will soon be switched off to save power.
Code red at Welligton hospital – again!
“New Food and Nutrition for Healthy, Confident Kids guidelines”
Labour Party Website
Shouldn’t the Labour government be ‘leading by example’ and providing only vegan organic celery sticks to it’s employees ?
By my count thats less than 10 sausage rolls a day
John Key says: “10??? We don’t care about numbers but rest assured under a National Party government there will be fewer sausage rolls!”
Media says: “This sausage roll rort must end. We realise that this is not a great deal of sausage rolls but the Government must understand that in this day and age the issue is perception. Now let us create the perception of a sausage roll rort!”
I see Martin Kay’s picked up the story on his Fairfax blog:
Public Servants living off the pig’s back
“Helen Clark is understandably furious about revelations that public servants have been gorging down quantities of sumptious sausage rolls the like of which most of the taxpaying public could only dream of ever eating.
“While the Government can probably defend the actual cost and number of these sausage rolls, the $27,000 figure sounds like a lot of money to spend on sausage rolls and it’s a major embarrassment for the Prime Minister heading into an election in which public service spending will be a central issue.
“The public service may argue the cost of the sausage rolls for the staff over the last nine years was cheaper than most alternative foods like pies or cakes – but image is everything….
“Labour wasn’t helped by Maryan Street’s initial reaction to attacks on the sausage rolls. She should have instantly condemned the choice of food, while staunchly defending the purpose of providing snacks at morning teas, the line she agreed with Clark before she answered questions on the issue on Tuesday.
“Now, she and the public service are left scrambling as questions are asked about what else staff ate and how much it cost. With Queen’s Birthday weekend looming, followed by a two-week recess, expect all details to be dumped in the next few days as Labour tries to kill the story.
“But don’t be surprised if there are more red faces first.”
let them eat sushi instead!
sausage rolls are so ‘Gliding On’
Shouldn’t the Labour government be ‘leading by example’ and providing only vegan organic celery sticks to it’s employees ?
Bryan, it’s satire.
Oh don’t tell him Tane, that was going to get really good
National today moved to clarify its position, following complaints from Sausage Roll manufacturers, traditional allies of the National Party.
John Key admitted that “there are issues around the roll thing that we will have to have a look at, and I want to make it clear, in terms of rolls and um, sausage, that there will not be fewer sausage rolls eaten under National, in the first term. We will, however, release an ambitious policy in which sausage rolls will be renamed, and arranged at slightly more creative angles on the plate.”
I’ve got to say, that sausage roll in the picture looks positively ambrosial. That flaky yet greasy pastry. That generous filling.
gs – brilliant.
billy – you’ll be disappointed to discover it’s actually a pork and fennel roll. yuck.
It may interest you to know Billy, that it’s a pork and fennel sausage roll.
Damn! Tane got there first.
it’s a pork and fennel sausage roll
Fckuing chardonnay socialists!
Morning tea time, I’m off to get a sausage roll. I wonder if I can claim it on expenses – I’ll say it was a plain sausage roll, not a luxury one with fennel and an extra packet of tomato sauce.
In all serious though, my partner use to work for the education ministry and those guys were putting on a morning tea everyday. This was basically all you can eat morning tea. She was shocked to be honest.
Then she moved to a certain power company which was doing this same, only on a bigger scale. Not only that, they were throwing planning meetings once at week at cretin hotel dinning rooms which would cost around $1k per week. A lot of the time these were not attended, so the fee would be paid and gone to waste.
There is some truth in this guys.
I was wondering how long it would take for the humourless right to turn up.
The upcoming ANZ report into govt spending will make interesting reading. I understand its not very positive. We have of course already seen the Salvation Army’s view of the effectiveness of Labours increasing govt spending in their report ‘What does it profit us?’
Despite Labour increasing core social spending by $16 billion over the last 10 years to a record $39 billion there has been little social progress which makes one wonder what the point of spending all that cash was.
Just to refresh the reports main findings: CYF referrals up 24% since 2005. Youth Court cases up 28% since 2001. 8300 women aged 15-19 pregnant compared to 7000 in 2001. Serious crime up 28% since 2002. Prison population up 36% since 2002. Prison running costs up from $431m to $862m.
But hey, carry on with the jokes about Sausage rolls.
Reminds me of something Marie Antoinette said about cake and people eating it, or was it Michael Cullen and cheese ? Oh yes the lack of cash to buy it. Labours greatest achievement really- saving people from a high fat cheese diet.
Richard, the joke is your beloved National Party and the fact they don’t have any policy. Can you tell me three good reasons you will be voting for them? And bear in mind I’m not asking you why you are going to vote against Labour.
Richard. Good use of selective statistics, I can chuck five times as many back at you (in fact, check the archives, most of them are there already).
A 50% increaseover ten years, wow, that doesn’t exceed inflation and popualtion growht by all that much does it?
Richard, all those findings you quote involve increased government expenditure over and above inflation increases. The public want tougher (longer) sentences, so look at what happens – the prison population goes up!
I haven’t seen the report so don’t know if some of the positives of the last few years are included – e.g. cot-death rates have decreased dramatically.
Best sausage rolls ever made by the nice lady at the Red Bull cafe in Patea and the spinach and feta sausage roll was nice too.
Fennel?
Jesus, what kind of sick mind…
Funnily, I never thought of the tea trolley as an instrument of creeping socialism. Thank you so much for enlightening us, once again.
Dear me, some people clearly don’t trust the sally army. I havn’t used selective stats, just the main ones from the sallies. By the by, total crown expenses have increased by 72% since 2000.
The reason for changing govts often, is the same reason baby nappies should also be changed often.
P.S unemployment was officilly recorded as dropping BEFORE Labour came into power. Helen and co, had very little to do with low unemployment, in the same way they now claim, unemployment rising has little to do with them either. Having their cake and eating it? Oh, there I go with cake references again…
Work calls, cheers
I see Richard couldn’t offer up a reason he is voting for National.
This reminds me an awful lot of Statistics NZ’s “how to make tea” guide that did the media rounds a couple of years ago…
Interestingly the price of sausage rolls in a café I visit from time to time have just gone up 10% in the last few days. (From $3 to $3.30).
I wonder why .
a) The main consumers of sausage rolls are not price sensitive as they always buy them with other peoples money?
b) Sausage rolls are a good proxy for the real rate of inflation?
c) The cost of backup generators to cover power blackouts has been factored into their cost?
d) It’s just a media beatup and the cost has been increased because the café owners have a person agenda for a tax cut?
I guess I know it’s got nothing to do with govt policies and/or govt spending creating rampant inflation, Labour spending like a drunken sailor can’t cause inflation can it?
Richard – here is another one (from the stuff.co.nz site):
“Results from the Health Ministry’s New Zealand Health Survey, released today by Prime Minister Helen Clark, show the prevalence of smoking among those aged 15 and over at 19.9 percent.
It is the first time the figure has dropped below 20 percent in over three decades of monitoring.
…
Results from a separate survey, released today by lobby group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), found 57 percent of Year 10 students had never smoked, a big rise from the 31 percent recorded in the same survey in 1999.”
So we have some good social outcomes from some Govt expenditure, but the real monetary effect (less spending on health) won’t be seen for years.
Burt
Your sausage roll has gone up because
a) fuel has doubled recently, definitely labour in cahoots with OPEC on that one.
b) Hike in pork price (main ingredient in the sausage), due to price controls in china, consequence of Labours FTA with china.
c)price of corn, to feed the pork has doubled due to US biofuel/ethanol policy, at the suggestion of the NZ Labour govt.
so all in all, the price increase has nothing to do with international factors, mostly because of kiwisaver, PC nonsense and the RMA…
Andy, you forgot the “anti-smacking” legislation: bakers are so despondent about no longer being able to beat their children their productivity has dropped thus creating supply-side price pressure.
Oh well, as long as junior Dr’s are not big sausage roll buyers becasue they are not going to get a 10% pay rise like the MP’s get every year AND like the public service morning tea budgets will certainly get to cover the cost increase.
Burt – you’re unintelligible. You sound like D4J but not as interesting.
burt
I suspect they are not sausage roll eaters, because of the decreasing size of interest free student loans, they eat cardboard and steal from the patients.
Also possible that due to impending power shortages (cunningly arranged by Mike Williams as election stunt) they may be able to buy uncooked sausage rolls at a major discount…
So all is not lost..