parliamentary spending

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Hoatu he tumanako ki a rātou

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 21st, 2024 - 20 comments

Grant Robertson has given his valedictory speech in Parliament.

Who is treating taxpayers as an ATM?

Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, March 1st, 2024 - 51 comments

It has been revealed that Christopher Luxon receives $52,000 a year from the taxpayer to pay for him staying in his own apartment. Update within the space of an hour he has said that it was his entitlement but then said that he will pay the money back.

How To Make Bad Law

Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, December 11th, 2023 - 15 comments

The cutting of Regulatory Impact Statements is a very serious weakening of holding lawmakers and decision makers  to account.

Sharma keeps digging

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, August 30th, 2022 - 33 comments

Last night a 4,761 word rant was published on Gaurav Sharma’s facebook page.  In it he details information which on the face of it may have breached confidentiality requirements. And the overwhelming effect of the allegations is Meh.

What to do with Gaurav Sharma

Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, August 16th, 2022 - 184 comments

The Labour Caucus will meet this afternoon to discuss what to do about Gaurav Sharma.

Why stick more fingers in the donations dyke?

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 pm, August 1st, 2022 - 13 comments

The latest attempt to construct a sensible political donations regime will likely again prove to be full of holes. Going back to basics would be much better. The good news is that the basics were comprehensively assessed 36 years ago by the 1986 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform. It recommended state funding.

Gumming up the works

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, August 28th, 2021 - 53 comments

Last night it was revealed that National and Act had refused to agree to a proposed virtual Parliament sitting where questions could be asked, and instead wanted face to face meetings, even though this would mean a third of the country’s MPs travelling regularly to Wellington from a Covid delta hotspot.

About Trevor Mallard

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 pm, May 5th, 2021 - 67 comments

  • Trevor Mallard has made a concerted effort to change the tone of Parliament.  But last night got caught in a bickering match with National.

Can we trust David Seymour?

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, May 1st, 2021 - 48 comments

David Seymour has got himself into a little bit of trouble. He filed a Parliamentary Pecuniary interests return that was not, ahem, correct.

Much ado about nothing

Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, March 13th, 2021 - 18 comments

Chris Bishop is claiming credit for Labour finishing a deal whereby the party rented premises to Parliamentary Services for the use of Gillian Anderson MP at a level well below market rates.

Everything Should Be Made As Uncomfortable As Possible, But No Less Comfortable

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, April 24th, 2019 - 26 comments

When providing a voluntary carbon-offset scheme, make it as simple as possible, but not simpler, and tell people about it.

Ross saga quiescent, but donations scandal needs addressing

Written By: - Date published: 4:26 pm, October 25th, 2018 - 21 comments

The Jami-Lee Ross scandal may have quietened down but issues raised by his explosive tape recording of Simon Bridges still need addressing. Does the $100k Zhang Yikun donation suggest we are going down the US track and, if so, what needs to be done about that

The Budget

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, May 17th, 2018 - 168 comments

An evolving post to cover budget announcements.

The Labour lite budget

Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, May 25th, 2017 - 25 comments

From pre announced budget initiatives it is clear that today’s budget will provide National the opportunity to announce watered down insipid versions of current Labour Party policies.

New Parliament buildings

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, November 29th, 2016 - 24 comments

A couple of reactions to the $100m Parliament building plans.

Treachery and silly season political snippets

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, December 23rd, 2015 - 61 comments

There’s still a few MPs “on duty”. Their function is to maintain the semblance of active government and to roll out a bunch of announcements they hope will escape full scrutiny.

Wallowing in extravagance

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, October 23rd, 2015 - 16 comments

“Wallowing in extravagance” is how Labour described the latest news of extreme spending from Steven Joyce’s MBIE.

Warner Bros – corporate welfare beneficiary

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, September 9th, 2015 - 63 comments

Figures have been released showing that Warner Bros were paid NZ $191 million in tax rebates to create the Hobbit Trilogy.  The films were very profitable.  Why is corporate welfare for profitable activity tolerated?

Sky City’s playing us for suckers

Written By: - Date published: 8:14 pm, February 10th, 2015 - 87 comments

Sky City crying too poor to build a bigger casino – give us a break, please!  Casino expert Sudhir Kale estimated the extra pokies gained by Sky  to be worth $35million over figures used by government. That’s for year upon year to 2048. It could cover any casino upgrade in four years. Either Joyce and Key are being played for suckers, or they are playing the rest of us for suckers. The deal stinks.

Polity: News from National Comms!

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, June 13th, 2014 - 40 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity on what has landed in his mail box paid for by your GST and also close to the wrong side the permissible limits of Parliamentary Services funds. Or perhaps this is something for “NZ Taxpayers Union” to moan about wasting taxpayers money with. They won’t of course because they seem to be good little front organisation for Act and Jordan Williams appears to have about as much independence as their beloved slaves. But if you received one, then a complaint seems in order.

Reef piranha

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, December 22nd, 2013 - 42 comments

Today’s Herald editorial gets one thing right – a media pack has turned on Len Brown. But it’s not gutsy journalism – it comes straight out of the Rupert Murdoch playbook. Len’s latest sin is his upgrades – EY says  they total  $32,000 for 64 occasions. That’s $500 an upgrade, which seems  a lot on top of what Len paid. The report does not detail how this total was arrived at, and I cannot find any example of any journalist asking questions about it.

Cameron Slater: So who pays who?

Written By: - Date published: 4:19 pm, December 12th, 2013 - 203 comments

Looks like John Key’s communications boss Jason Ede has been busted supplying material for the most disgusting site in local politics – Whaleoil. It has long been suspected that he supplies material and possibly even writes for that site as part National’s dirty tricks team. Looks like we have some confirmation. So how much is the taxpayer paying for this public servant to blog and does he do it for his job? How much does Cameron Slater “demand” from the taxpayer to provide this service?

Wishing Chris Carter well

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.

Nat websites publicly-funded

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.

Leader repays chopper flights

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.

Saying a lot while saying very little

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’.

A-G sure to launch Wong probe

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, December 10th, 2010 - 12 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.

Labour and Greens lead on transparency

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, November 3rd, 2010 - 12 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…

The reverse midas touch

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, July 4th, 2010 - 8 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.

Nats push-polling on your dime?

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 am, July 1st, 2010 - 61 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.

Credit card scandals & false economies

Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, June 23rd, 2010 - 92 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?