First we have the erstwhile PM pontificating at the CTU conference telling the teachers that they should take a salary cut so the NACT govt can then pay the school support staff properly, then we have "Double Dipton" declaring that the change in "ownership"of his family home in wellington had nothing to do with him being able to rort more of the taxpayers' money in "accommodation allowances" so that he could be a permanent resident in Dipton - a township that hasn't seen him as any more than a temporary resident since he left there to go to school. adding to that rort we then are witness to him being paraded in an election campaign style advertising blitz by none other than the state broadcasting corporation as the front man for a programme named after him and all being declared as being honest and transparent!
Add to that the revelation that the NACT govt is now going to privatise ACC, flog off local body assets, especially water, in the race to "super-size" Auckland and the path to corruption gets even smoother.
Then, today, we get a report that the Herald's favourite "perk buster" and supporter of local democracy, Rodney Hide, has been caught rorting the taxpayer as well. As this story demonstrates:
ACT leader Rodney Hide says he disagrees with the perk that gives MPs a taxpayer-funded 90 percent fare discount for themselves and their partners - but he still used it to take his girlfriend overseas.
The air fares for Louise Crome's trip to London, Canada and the United States are reported to have cost $25,163.
Mr Hide's fares and accommodation cost $26,872.
He said today the perk was "a silly anachronism" but it existed and he couldn't change it.
"I don't agree with that rule but I'm not a martyr," he said on Radio New Zealand.
"I checked twice with the prime minister that it was acceptable. It got all the ticks."
To make it worse Rodney "I'm a little piggy too" Hide declares that because it's alright with Key and the others are doing it too he'll dig his hands into the public purse to entertain his girlfriend with overseas trips again.
Lapsed perkbuster Rodney Hide says he will use his MP's travel expenses again to take his partner overseas.
The Act leader was making no apologies yesterday for the public purse paying $25,163 for his partner, Louise Crome, to accompany him as Local Government Minister on a Super City fact-finding visit to Britain, Canada and the United States, and some domestic travel.
Mr Hide is the second Act MP to run up a big globetrotting bill on the taxpayer by using a travel perk for longstanding MPs.
In July, it was revealed that Act's Sir Roger Douglas, Parliament's most vocal campaigner against wasteful spending of taxpayers' money, had spent $44,411 on travel - most of it on a trip he and his wife took to London to see their son and grandchildren. The figures emerged under a new quarterly reporting regime of transparency for parliamentary spending.
If this isn't hypocrisy in action and being given the "BIG TIC" by the John Key I'm at a loss to discover what might be.
Isn't it about time there was a real public outcry at the high handed manner this NACT government is behaving?
