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notices and features - Date published:
10:00 am, February 26th, 2010 - 1 comment
Categories: corruption, Environment -
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Russel Norman has an ironic adjunct to the ‘storm in a wine glass’ (as one wit on RNZ called Phil Heatley’s resignation):
I have been calling on central govt to consider sewerage systems as important infrastructure and financially support communities like Whangarei to upgrade them. There were 45 raw sewerage discharges last year in Whangarei, many of them in the Harbour. Yuk.
Phil Heatley, the local member, dismissed my suggestion that central government should help Whangarei clean up its harbour with the comment that:
‘Russel Norman’s got plenty of reasons to spend other people’s money’ (Whangarei Leader 16-2-10).
It turns out that Phil too has plenty of reasons to spend other people’s money. But it seems we have different priorities.
Heatley’s not the only minister to use public money for private gain.
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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What is it about Ministers of Housing and their difficulties with expenses? Is it the leaks that get them into trouble…?