Key’s lies on housing rort exposed

Written By: - Date published: 5:54 am, September 9th, 2009 - 13 comments
Categories: corruption, housing, john key, national/act government - Tags:

As I alluded to yesterday, the claims from John Key that he has slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the cost of ministerial housing are rubbish. The media did a pretty good job of exposing the lie (except TV3 who just had some junior reporter toeing Key’s line).

Here’s how it works. Ministerial services put up four options for Cabinet to choose from. Option 1 was the status quo. Option 4 was the automatic payment of $37,500 plus sell the crown houses. Key came up with a fifth option – $37,500 and don’t sell the houses but he tried to pass off the savings from Option 4 as the savings from his option:

housing rort options

TVNZ worked it out to a $40,000 saving, I get $88,000 extra cost because the admin costs aren’t really going to come down if the crown houses aren’t sold.

Key kept up the lies today, when asked by Fran Mold about this savings claim he double counted the supposed savings in admin costs. He has failed to produce an accurate costing of his scheme, forcing us to estimate instead. As Fran diplomatically put it ‘the costs keep changing from hour to hour’. It’s actually Key’s typical mode of operation – keep it vague and try to hide the truth.

So, Key’s lying about the savings but, for once, the media weren’t bamboozled by the numbers, they saw right through him. Even if Key were telling the truth about savings the fact would remain that his scheme still allows Bill English to continue rorting us and, worse, it gives a bonus payment to the nine ministers who are currently spending less than $37,500.

Of course, if these ministers chose not to rort us we really will save money. So, I’ll ask the question again: why don’t National’s ministers just stop ripping us off?

13 comments on “Key’s lies on housing rort exposed ”

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  1. ghostwhowalksnz 1
    9 September 2009 at 7:04 am

    The Dompost shows up the lies told by English,
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2845887/Fresh-housing-woes-for-English

    ie “The title deed for the Karori property, in which he and his family have lived for several years, shows he and his wife, Mary, were joint owners till March, when it was transferred to her name alone.”

    Since the public were paying under his cosy backdated arrangement, lets have all the documents available rather the bland meaningless words like this
    “Mr English has said the change in ownership to his wife had nothing to do with parliamentary allowances and happened last year but took time to appear on the title. It had always been owned by the Endeavour Trust.”

    Took time ? yeah right . The system is computerised now days Bill, and the timing of all the transactions is noted on the title as these details are very very important.

    An orchestrated litany of lies from English

  2. toad 2
    9 September 2009 at 7:52 am

    And under Key’s proposal, Sir Double Dipton gets back $13,500 of the part of his allowance he agreed to relinquish when his rort was initially exposed.

  3. Adrian 3
    9 September 2009 at 7:57 am

    Now, children, that is corruption, repeat after me, c-o-r-r-u-p-t-i-o-n-, corruption, very good, now if you want to have some of it join the National Party.

  4. Eric C. 4
    9 September 2009 at 7:59 am

    These guys have no shame.

    They used a sham review to open up the rules to allow themselves to pocket even more of our tax money then they were pocketing before.

    They tried to cover it up with phantom paper savings, but the end result is bigger bank accounts and greater equity in property for ministers and their families.

    Don’t they all have enough money already?

  5. ghostwhowalksnz 5
    9 September 2009 at 9:05 am

    Since they are now ‘given’ the housing funding to do as they see fit , they will all be like English and buy a property and use the money to pay the mortgage. The Wellington real estate agents must trembling with excitement over this chance to score some new buyers

  6. Lanthanide 6
    9 September 2009 at 9:30 am

    I’m pretty sure that the admin costs will be a bit lower, since they won’t have to manage the leased properties, or the way that the payments were made monthly anymore – now they just give a lump sum cheque out. That has to save admin costs.

    So the estimate of $40k savings is probably closer to reality than just using the old numbers carte-blanche.

  7. travellerev 7
    9 September 2009 at 10:38 am

    It’s the the story of the frog and the scorpion really isn’t it?
    It’s in their nature.

  8. Irascible 8
    9 September 2009 at 3:39 pm

    Notice the crosby-textor spin in the Herald trying to get public sympathy for the “poor’ ministers,like the obnoxious oily Heatley, who will be “penalised” under the money trader’s rorting solution.
    I can’t say I’m impressed by the solution.It is a manifestation of micro-management masquerading as competence and dynamic leadership of the nation state. Nothing more that recycling Key as the “smiling assassin” (the mythical giant who strode through the gambling dens of the money trading houses.

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