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So what was all the fuss about?

by Whaleoil on December 3, 2010

Good grief. If we had all believed Phil Goff and his muck-raking troll Pete Hodgson we should now be seeing a by-election in Botany. Unfortunately for Labour and its schemers they were a long, long way short on this one.

In fact if you compare the $500 odd that Pansy Wong has to pay back with say…Clayton Cosgrove and his magical missing suits at $1000 a pop, three in a year, or Chris Carter and his astounding and prolific travel arrangement you have to really wonder if it shouldn’t be Labour politicians falling on their swords.

The reports reviews the total subsided international air travel since 2003. For Pansy Wong it is $27,000 against the average for an MP of $60,000. And Sammy Wong’s travel is also below the average for a spouse – $26,000 against the average of $49,000.

What I want to know now is which MPs and their spouses are above the average…we should be looking very very closely at their expenses. If Pansy Wong is found to have breached and she and her husband are less than average spenders then pure mathematics suggests that the ones that are above average are probably breaching a whole lot more.

Phil Goff, desperate to salvage some dignity, has of course labelled the report a whitewash. Perhaps we should remind him of what a whitewash really looks like, it was called the Ingram report and was used by Labour, Helen Clark and Philip Field to claim it exonerated the now incarcerated , convicted corrupt Labour politician.

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  • Doug

    Pete Hodgson (Inspector Clouseau) gets egg on face again he should stay as MP of Silly Dancing. He might get the job of Gollum in the upcoming Movie.

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  • mediatart

    You dont believe for a minute that this is the truth about the Wongs .
    The report is full of ‘ no evidence’ which is official speak for ‘didnt ask’
    They only have been caught out by the private law suit otherwise it would have been a complete ‘wongwash’
    All those trips as Minister ??
    Carter was envious.
    The business meetings at the electorate office ?
    Good to see the National Party prefers to keep the Asian cash rolling in via the Wongs.
    it will catch them out eventually when someone is aggrieved

  • cadwallader

    Mediatart: Your hero Phil Goof is desperately attempting to drag this into something it is not! Mrs Wong has been exonerated all but for a couple of hundred dollars. Philip Field was a saint? Chris Carter not profligate?

    I understand Hodgson used to sell organic vegetables on the Otago Uni campus. I wager that he is a failed Chinese greengrocer. Perhaps the Wongs are the remarkable object of his envy.

    • http://zerorocketlaunchers.blogspot.com/ Mr. Infinity

      Hodgson, Mallard…they’re little more than attack dogs on Goff’s leash. However if you don’t feed dogs, they turn on you.

  • mediatart

    Its obvious none of you have read the Wongwash’

    “In the circumstances, I see no need to question the purposes given for the travel.”

    This was repeated ad nauseum for Trips 1,2,3,6. So they were spun a tale about the travel by the Wongs and that was taken at face value .!!

    Sammy ‘didnt have many business interests in China’ Yeah right
    Thats why he had an APEC card, which was used by people on business to faciliate travel and visa requirements in Asia.

    The long time public servant is now a freelance ‘consultant’ had this to say

    “For the most part his travel in Asia has
    been to holiday with his wife, catch up with his family, visit friends and
    acquaintances, and visit tourist sites”

    The only problem was the trip 11 where they were doing what they allways do but a law suit caught them out ‘doing business’.
    If it wasnt for this, they would have claimed they were visiting ‘tourist sites’ as well

    And then he gets to Domestic travel by the Wongs .

    Here he doesnt even bother to go through the charade but mere waves the Wongwash brush right away

    “I have not undertaken a detailed investigation of the domestic air travel
    undertaken by Pansy Wong, but I have no reason to believe that her
    expenditure on travel is not in accordance with the principles to be applied in

  • http://www.cadlow.co.nz spanishbride

    OT but I love what he has to say about the Whale
    Well worth a squizz …. http://www.dennis.co.nz/blog/~d/2010-11-30/post/the-2-edged-sword-of-exposure/id/269/

  • mediatart

    Whale this newspapr is onto it-
    Sammy Wong took 358 domestic flights over 10 years – racking up a travel bill of almost $100,000 on the taxpayer.
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4422522/Husband-billed-taxpayer-for-100-000-of-air-travel
    Normally we dont get to know the details of MPs domestic travel due to loopholes in the OIA ( which whale quite rightly has made an issue)
    This is the zinger-
    the Christchurch property was kept as a base “requiring maintenance and oversight”. “Sammy Wong had been travelling to and from Christchurch to maintain the home and section.”

    So Sammy was mowing the lawns in Chch, while the taxpayer paid for his flights from Auckland.
    But the investigator has accepted his word that Sammy Teck Seng Wong was doing anything related to his business interests in Chch. ( The Wongs lived there for many years) WTF

    Even the use of the tax payer funded office in Chapel Rd as Sammys registered office is passed off a OK as the taxpayer only rented ‘upstairs’ and since the downstairs was ‘empty’ but could be used as a meeting room. Everything is hunky dory.

    The wheels are coming off this little charade allready. BUt of course the real reason is to put off an election in Nationals heartland where they ‘should win’ hands down.
    Go figure

    • http://zerorocketlaunchers.blogspot.com/ Mr. Infinity

      Will win. Labour cannot make up 18 points in less than a year with the leadership team they have.

      From a rightie to a leftie, here’s some advice you can pass on. Dump all the Clarke acolytes, there’s a reason the country voted her out, they were sick of her. Goff, King, Mallard, Cosgrove, that creepy little shit from the west coast, they all have her stink on them (Tizard too, but for other reasons).

      Dump progressivism – that means stop giving a shit about the environment, gays, women, Islanders and Maori, youth – and go back to the Labour movement and jobs at any cost (if you’ve ever met an actual working class Labour voter, they’re racist, homophobic and sexist as can be, but vote Labour because they hate rich folk). Motivate your core voter base – you won’t lose any votes from the progressives because they’re fundamentally fucked in the head to begin with and will only at a strech switch to Green, which is just the same as voting for leader.

      As for a leader? Shane Jones or Andrew Little would be my bet, but in an ideal world you’ll go with Mallard, King or (please let it be so) keep the Goff-father.

  • mediatart

    Mr If..
    (1) Tizard is long gone , but like an ex who was a bitch, you cant seem to get her out of your head !( mmmmm she was no more no less than a Labour version of Pansy)
    (2) You have a celebrity whore as PM- which leaves no room on the stage for anyone else. Remember history shows that Nationals next election result will be worse than when they won
    (3) Did I mention the economy is tanking- that cycleway is taking a while to kick in
    (4) Dont kid yourself that Key has a clue, they thought it before he became PM, but all doubt is removed
    (5) Ask Labour in Aus about high poll numbers

  • http://zerorocketlaunchers.blogspot.com/ Mr. Infinity

    Labour’s drop in poll numbers in Aus was due to an effective and brutal opposition, Phil Goff is a pussy of the highest order, without policy or a team that likes him. You are mentally retarded if you think he can win.

    I won’t shut up about Tizard until Comrade Helen comes out of the closet.

    Celebrity Whore? Way to play the man and and not the ball. That’s how pathetic you guys are at the moment. The country hates you, and won’t forgive itself for letting a socialist turn this country into a giant hugs + kisses, cuddle the criminals, envy taxed, anti-business, anti-success, mediocre hole.

    The economy is tanking? Stop reading the Standard, it’s a lie. In September the Govorner of the Reserve Bank announced the economy had grown by 0.2%. Fuck all because he won’t let the private sector take over all our pathetic SOEs, or cut their taxes some more, but still growing.

    Plus all Key has to do to win is point to Barack Obama’s America, which is dying thanks his ideas (forget Bush, he’s gone) and show the world that lefties don’t work.