I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.
The Auditor-General has found that Phil Heatley wrongly bought $1,402 worth of private goods and services on his ministerial and MP tabs. That’s OK according to the PM because Heatley didn’t intend to break the rules. Well, I guess that’s OK then. Of course, you have to assume that Heatley is a total idiot in that case.
It’s pretty rare that I agree with John Key but he got it right when he voiced concern that journalists are attacking MPs for legitimately using their budgets to do their jobs. Do we really want to force parties to rely on private funding for communicating their positions? That makes politics a rich man’s game. There are plenty of actual rip-offs and rorts for the media to root out.
Labour’s ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign has hit the road. Phil Goff is travelling around New Zealand explaining why Labour opposes National’s plan to hike GST on everyone to pay for tax cuts that will primarily go to the well-off. National are worried. They’re not promoting their package anymore, they’re lashing out at Goff.
No, it’s not one of the Nats or their hangers-on. It’s Shane Jones. Following revelations that National ministers have been essentially stealing taxpayer […]
Fran O’Sullivan agrees with my theory on the real reason for Phil Heatley’s resignation and the reason why an excuse was invented. The real reason was what amounts to Heatley’s theft of taxpayer money by using his ministerial credit card, and the receipt excuse was invented to protect Gerry Brownlee who had also misused his credit card
Ministers don’t resign for describing a trivial expense in a perfectly legitimate way. I’m thinking Phil Heatley really had a crisis of conscience over the credit card ‘misuse’ and wanted to resign but that would have put Gerry Brownlee in the gun too. So they invented the receipt excuse. What’s your theory?
Yesterday the Dominion Post caught out National Party Ministers using their taxpayer funded credit cards for personal use. This was a gross betrayal of public trust. Housing Minister Phil Heatley knew what he was doing, but did it anyway. John Key should sack Heatley for turning his nose up at the Kiwi taxpayer.
Ministers are given self-drive taxpayer-funded cars for official business in their electorates (in Wellington they have crown limos at their disposal for official […]
Earlier this year, John Key stated: “I’ve told [my ministers] if they want to take their partner, they can do it, but they pay for […]
Just saw this in the SST. Hide on the spousal travel allowance: This perk is wrong, I’ve never agreed with it So why […]
Yesterday, John Key cleverly tried to reframe his ministers’ failure to obey his standards on use of perks: “You don’t want 120 Members […]
I’m sure you noticed Hide’s latest shenanigans – getting his partner taxpayer subsidised international flights despite Key’s directive not to. Key (surprise, surprise) is ‘comfortable’ with […]
Why is our agriculture minister spending as much as the Prime Minister on international travel? David Carter has spent $72,000 on international travel […]
One thing about love is that what you abhor or hate in others you tolerate, even admire, in the object of your affection. […]
Following my post yesterday, toad on g.blog raises some questions about Nick Smith’s expense claims: In the Dompost article, Nick Smith said “I had […]
The Greens have a superannuation fund. That’s fine. It has investments in a couple of houses. That’s fine. The Green MPs have to […]
Things must be getting decidedly trippy for Deputy PM Bill English about now, and not in a good way. While his glorious leader […]
Bill English is not holding up well to the persistent questions put to him in Parliament about shuffling around his financial appearance to […]
And by any other name it smells as bad. John Key has annouced a reform of the rules for ministerial accommodation allowance. A […]
Yesterday, John Armstrong talked about the Auditor-General’s 2001 report into eligibility for a Wellington accommodation allowance: the then Auditor-General David MacDonald scrutinised allowances […]
Over at Red Alert, Trevor Mallard has posted a form that all MPs wanting an out-of-town allowance must fill out. It asks MPs […]
