Charter $chools
Today’s Herald has an excellent piece on charter schools – School cash flows to owners’ pockets. What a surprise!
rort
An eyesore for Auckland
Steven Joyce has announced (because Key likes to stay clear of bad news) that SkyCity will not be seeking public funding for its convention center. So looks like it will be Key’s “eyesore”.
Taxpayers support Mr “Small Government”
If ACT were made up for a show like “The Thick of It”, or “Veep”, they would be dismissed as too ridiculous and extreme for the audience to swallow…
NRT: A model for unaccountability
The Act party, well known for rorts, dodgy deals, general corruption, and the poor calibre of their candidates, is doing it again. National gave their single novice MP an “under-secretary” position to allow Act to rort extra money from taxpayers. It also provides him with a position that is wholly unaccountable to parliament or the public via OIA.
Rorty rorty
You’ll remember that, back in 2009, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English was caught claiming an ‘out of town’ allowance – intended to pay for non-Wellington-based MPs’ accommodation in the capital – to pay the mortgage on his family home in Karori. Key’s solution was to let all his ministers claim the rort. Now, it turns out some of them are doubling down on the rort.
Rorts
One law for the rich, another for the poor.
Life in the fast lane
Judith Collins has joined the long list of National MPs with their hands buried up to the elbows in the taxpayer’s pockets. She claims it was all within the rules. That doesn’t make it right.
A-G sure to launch Wong probe
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.
Auditor-General must investigate Wongs
Fresh evidence was presented in the House yesterday by rortbuster Pete Hodgson that makes a lie of testimony Sammy Wong gave to the investigation into his and his wife’s travel on taxpayer money. A proper inquiry by the Auditor-General must now be undertaken. There are also questions over John Key’s involvement.
Another whitewash
Once again the play is performed. A minister is caught rorting, admits wrong-doing, an investigation is launched, the investigation doesn’t ask crucial questions, it finds no fault just confusion on the part of the poor old minister, the rules are changed. English, Worth, Heatley, Wong… all the same. These farces need a new script.
Waiting on Wong to do right
Why are we waiting for Pansy Wong to resign from Parliament for her corrupt use of her MP’s perks or, failing that, for the Nats to evict her? The theory is the Nats want to avoid a by-election over summer. As Trevor Mallard puts it – Key wants to have his Hawaii holiday in peace. But the NBR’s Matt Nippert has other reasons for Wong’s soft treatment.
Key: up to Labour to stop us rorting
With Pansy Wong in hiding on John Key’s orders, rort-buster Pete Hodgson laid the blame her corruption and all the other rorts squarely on Key yesterday. In question after question, Key couldn’t make a serious defence of his record. Then, he made an extraordinary admission: his ministers will keep on rorting – it’s up to Labour to catch them.
Worse than I imagined
We learn from rort-buster Pete Hodgson that Pansy Wong and her husband have been running private companies out of her taxpayer-funded electorate office. I don’t see how she can remain in Parliament now. Who set and enforced the standards that have seen so many ministers involved in rorts? There’s only one person to point the finger at: Key
Our $20 million bill for Nats’ expediency
Many argue English should never have extended the deposit guarantee to South Canterbury Finance in April, or question whether the terms of the guarantee called for the pay-out. Then there’s the stink around the payment of SCF bonds. One thing’s for sure, the Nats didn’t need to spend $20 million on foreign depositors – they did it to try to kill the issue faster. Plenty of meat for Labour. Will they bite?
Key aids English’s latest rort
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 […]
Breaking English
Bill English is not holding up well to the persistent questions put to him in Parliament about shuffling around his financial appearance to […]