Greedy Little Piggies

A couple of bludging MPs are off to some talk fest.

Labour MPs Pete Hodgson and William Sio are off to Mexico and Panama.

Speaker Lockwood Smith said the pair would meet Mexican parliamentarians in Mexico City, before heading to 124th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Panama City, Panama.

In Mexico discussions would cover customs, business and both countries’ roles in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Since the early 1970s, Mexico has consistently been our key export market in Latin America while growing in significance as a destination for New Zealand investment,” Dr Smith said.

Over the past five years, New Zealand exports to Mexico have averaged around $444 million per year.

If Mexico is so important why are we sending two losers, one about to leave parliament and the other ranked 17 on Labour’s list.

Lookwood Smith would do us all a favour by making any travel by anyone outside of cabinet only half subsidised, so the MP had to pay the other half. That would make them stop and think about whether it was good value to go.

Ruth Dyson is crying crocodile tears about her troughing trip to Ethiopia. One week there would be bad enough but what on earth can you do for two weeks?

Labour MP Ruth Dyson is to pay back $16,000 of taxpayers’ money used for a recent private trip to Ethiopia for herself and her husband.

She said in a statement it was no longer appropriate for taxpayers to subsidise such trips “when so many Kiwis are struggling to make ends meet”.

She said when she applied for the trip last July it was before the rules had changed and the subsidy was perfectly within the rules.

“However, I felt uncomfortable about the subsidy all the while I was overseas, and when I got back yesterday I informed Labour Leader Phil Goff I would be repaying the subsidy of just under $16,000, and making a statement about it. Phil said he believed my decision was the right one.”

“Over the past month or so, there have been more and more stories about Kiwis struggling to pay their weekly bills and put food on the table,” Dyson said.

Such trite tosh. She is only sorry she got caught. Is Phil Goff even in control of his caucus anymore?

In the SST on Sunday Jonathan Marshall again busted Len Brown fro his pay off of campaign workers and golden handshakes, and this morning Len Brown excluded the public from the meeting to confer those favours on his campaign helpers.

For some bizarre reason Fairfax hasn’t seen fit to put Marshall’s story online, (read it here ) so I will have to quote from Bernard Orsman’s regurgitation this morning. First the golden parachute rort;

Former Papakura District Council chief executive Theresa Stratton has started work in Mayor Len Brown’s office weeks after receiving a redundancy payment of $209,730.

It is understood Ms Stratton has been able to keep the money because of an employment technicality.

She has gone from a full-time position in her old job to a three-year fixed-term contract as a senior planning adviser in the mayor’s office.

Her new contract does not have provision for redundancy.

Theresa Stratton should be made to pay back the parachute payment. It is unconscionable that the ratepayers of first Papakura District Council and second the new Auckland Council have been ripped off with the dodgy appointment processes surrounding the appointment of Theresa Stratton. Those processes are nowhere near as dodgy as the practices of secrecy and with-hunts being orchestrated by Len Brown over CCo appointments.

Richard Jeffrey and Pauline Winter, both members of Mr Brown’s mayoral campaign, will be paid $35,000 a year as directors of the Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development and Auckland Council Investments CCOs respectively.

Former Labour Party president Mike Williams – Mr Brown is a Labour Party member – and former Papakura Mayor John Robertson will make $52,500 and $35,000 a year as board directors of the Auckland Transport and Regional Facilities CCOs.

Last week, it was revealed that Mr Brown’s former chief executive at Manukau City Council, Leigh Auton, and former Manukau deputy mayor, Gary Troup, would be appointed to the property and regional facilities CCOs boards respectively.

They will each be paid $35,000 a year.

Mr Brown has refused to say anything about why he is putting so many close political allies forward for jobs at today’s CCO strategy and appointments subcommittee and whether Ms Stratton should pay back her redundancy.

Why won’t Len Brown tell us anything. He promised us he would be an open book. Is this his what he means when he says he will give us “straight answers, but always with a limit”.

It seems that Len is cultivating a culture of secrecy instead of the transperency that he promised us. Just today he is excluding the public from the meeting to appoint CCO board members, which is ironic because he demanded that CCOs hold meetings in public. It seems that Len Brown has standards for transparency that he likes to apply to others but not to himself. Not only is Len Brown secretive, but he is actually justifying and explaining it.

Members of the public have this morning been excluded from a meeting as Auckland councillors debate who will head the city’s Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).

Seven CCOs have been set up to deliver services and manage some of the council’s assets, such as Auckland Transport and the Waterfront Development Agency.

Salaries range from $35,000 to $52,000 for a CCO director’s work, which is essentially part time.

The council this morning passed a resolution to exclude the public from a meeting of the CCO strategy and appointments sub-committee, with only one Councillor, Jami-Lee Ross, voting against it.

Thank god there is one honest councillor in Jami-lee Ross. What a pity that Penny Hulse and Len Brown are running the city like secretive uber-lords.

However Mayor Len Brown defended the move, saying it was in order to protect the reputation of the CCO applicants.

Speaking to the committee before the motion was passed Ross said he was concerned the debate behind closed doors would mean the process would not be as transparent as possible.

He said he did not buy the argument that good people would not put themselves forward in the future if the CCO appointments were done in a public meeting.

“The final sign-off with identified people should be done publicly.”

He said there was no reason to have the vote behind closed doors.

Deputy mayor Penny Hulse spoke in favour of the excluding the public, saying she would be extremely uncomfortable for the applicants to have the committee discuss their credentials in public.

She said the applicants had a legal right to have their reputations protected and also the council had to protect itself over any privacy issues.

Brown agreed the decision to exclude the public was to protect the applicants’ reputation.

“Much of what we do in this committee will be a matter of public record but this is the issue where we are protecting people’s reputation.”

WTF…the reputation of key Brown campaign helpers? The reputation of Mike Williams? The reputation of the man who is the bagman for the singer at the now infamous and secret Volare dinner, a dinner that Len Brown broke his own council rules over and one he still is refusing to tell about, the same dinner that Richard Jeffrey attended, the same Richard Jeffreyy who donated money to Len Brown’s campaign in 2007…that reputation…yeah that needs to be protected.

This is nothing short of cronyism and political payoffs. Who ever is advising Len Brown is either stupid or not being listened to. This must be what Len Brown means when he said “Transparency is not a perfect thing,” and “Transparency doesn’t just happen in a perfect world.”

Clearly this is the limits that Len Brown speaks of when giving us the straight answers. So far we have seen almost no impact on the 100 projects in 100 days but rapid spending on flash new chairs to sit in, jobs for the liars and cheats who covered his tracks at Manukau and now jobs for hacks who patted his back and cajoled the churches in South Auckland. Len Brown might just be the fastest moving trougher on the planet.

Veteran trougher Leigh Auton said this back in June this year;

“I’ve chosen not to apply for any of the positions. For me that’s a big decision,” he says. “I’ve been 32 years in Manukau City and another three years before that at Waitemata.

“The time’s right for me to go. I spent a lot of time last year working my way through that. I’m still a couple of years shy of 60 and if I want to set up my own business, it’s the right time to do it.”

Why the change of heart? No clients for his new business? Nobody wants a trougher and a liar?

No wonder Len Brown is trying to find a job for his old mate and protector of secrets.

One has to wonder why though, that Len brown is trying to have these appointments conducted in secret?

Is this part of his promise to “always front up”… to give us “the straight answers, always with a limit.”

What this blogger wants to know is who else in Len Browns support team, donors and campaign team have been promised jobs? What other interesting names are going to creep out of the woodwork in coming weeks? And how does Len Brown reconcile these appointments with his claim to have stood for office to be the Mayor for ALL of Auckland, and not just his lefty mates and funders.

The MPs travel perk is gone. Lockwood Smith has finally done what he told me he would never do.

Speaker Lockwood Smith has axed the international travel perk MPs and their spouses have used since the 1970s, saying it was clear the tide had turned on the perks.

Dr Smith announced his decision tonight after meeting with the representatives for all political parties on the Parliamentary Service Commission.

The decision will not take formal effect until he changes the official rules for Parliament. However, he said he had made it clear to Parliamentarians what his decision was to ward off any last-chance uses of it.

Dr Smith said he intended to set up another scheme to allow politicians to go on parliamentary-related travel, which would have strict rules. However, taxpayer subsidies for international flights for private travel would no longer apply.

There is warning though. The trough pigs may still get it through the back-door by getting a pay ride to compensate them for the loss of the perk.

He will advise Inland Revenue and the Remuneration Authority of his decision – the Remuneration Authority makes decisions on MPs’ base salaries and could increase that to compensate for the loss of the perk.

How about NO.

They trough plenty big enough already and the poor little diddums want the taxpayer to compensate them for the loss of their taxpayer subsidised holidays. No way. they can join the rest of the country in NOT having taxpayer subsidies for their holidays.

Dr Smith said he had not addressed the question of former MPs, who are still entitled to the allowance.

Why not. It’s not like they can complain, they are all ex-MPs, scum mostly, voted out or retired. Axe their perk too.

Lyn Provost - The Queen of Mean

Some time ago I sent an OIA request to the Auditor-General for all of their credit card expenses. They initially refused because the Auditor-General is not subject to the OIA.

They have now reconsidered and accordingly provided the information that I requested. It is actually a brilliant example of someone impeccable with their expenses. Every MP and a certain city mayor can learn from this.

Every instance of expense is detailed with who was there and what it was about. Even parking dockets are fully explained. Compare that to Len Brown’s still secret Volare dinner.

Lyn Provost is the epitome of fiscal rectitude. She flew Pacific Blue to Port Moresby which is pig of a flight at the best of times and one that no one would be-grudge a business class fare and/or a Groser/McCully style truck load of piss to soothe the nerves for that flight. But our cheap and frugal Auditor-General flew Pacific Blue and bought two sets of sandwiches, cookies and an iced tea for a total of $28.20. That’s a bargain no matter how much they charge for an iced tea on Pacific Blue. She even stayed in a dive of a hotel. That’s taking one for the team in anyones book.

In fact a look through the expenses shows precious little alcohol if any, and if there is it is for other people. She certainly isn’t buying icecream and fish and chips for the kids.

On the 26th of March 2010 there is an amount of $3 for short term parking, this was when her family came to pick her up at the airport instead of billing it to Corporate Cabs for a hundy. She frequently gets people to pick her up from airports instead of bill the taxpayer for cab fares.

She is tighter than a fish’s arse and that’s waterproof. Lyn Provost, civil servant, I dub thee The Queen of Mean.

Now compare and contrast the behaviour of our Auditor-General with the attitude of Len Brown and worse the attitude of Lockwood Smith. The OIA doesn’t apply to the Auditor-General yet she supplied the information in order to show that they are accountable for public monies. Little wonder she wanted her tightness displayed when you compare her fiscal rectitude with the profligate and reckless waste of taxpayers money by troughing MPs living it up on the large care of the taxpayer.

She didn’t have to release these detail, but she did, to the enormous shame of Lockwood Smith who is still trying desperately to keep MPs expenses and other troughing out of the disinfectant of bright clear sunlight.

Lyn Provost was previously appointed by Labour and one could very easily dismiss her just for being a pinko appointment, but these expenses show just how seriously she takes her role and her responsibilities as a guardian of the New Zealand tax payer.

I suggest Parliamentary Services be outsourced and put under the the control of Lyn Provost, so the Queen of Mean can spring clean MPs spending. With the continued expenses debacle currently besetting parliament it is time for some independent control to be exerted over their expenses. I can think of no-one more qualified than Lyn Provost for this job.

OIA for Credit Card Expenses – Office of Auditor-General

Pete Hodgson’s hit on Pansy Wong will have caused ructions, not just in National, but across all other parties as MPs rack their feeble minds about whether or not they conducted even 5 minutes of business while they availed themselves of taxpayer funded travel.

It isn’t then a surprise that many MPs are calling for the end of what could possibly be the end of them.

While Hodgson can claim the scalp he should really hand the kudos to an embittered investor intent on revenge for getting tucked in a business deal in China. He really should have read my post about understanding how business is conducted in China, in particular these translations;

Spirit of co-operation and partnership” — you do what we say.

“We are not in competition we are partners” — I’m going to bend you over and screw you from behind once we’ve stolen, or borrowed, or unpicked your IP and under-cutting you in a factory in Guangdong.

Meanwhile plenty of other MPs and ex-MPs will be quietly hoping that interested media and bloggers don’t start going over their ravel expenses and matching them to meetings or document signings or photos in social media.

It is beyond even the most partisan hack’s justification to suggest that MPs an their spouses/partners availing themselves of the travel perk never conducted even a minute of business while using the travel perk.

To suggest that is the case stretches the boundaries of truth just too far. Are they really saying that when Peter Davis travelled on his spouses perk that he never, not once, ever conducted any business or research or even held a 10 minute meeting in the Koru Club related to his line work?

Or any number of the MPs who hold directorships, trusteeships or interets outside of parliament never took a call on their phone that took 5 minutes while they were on holiday and discussed business or otherwise.

Pete Hodgson did us all a favour by attacking Pansy Wong, he ensured that every other MP in parliament is now looking over their shoulders, as well they should.

But watch as collectively they all do the wrong thing and squeal for compensation at the removal of the perk.

I shake my head in disbelief that simple rules can’t be followed. If you can’t follow simple rules and just trough it at the taxpayers expense then you don’t deserve to be a minister.

Former Cabinet minister Pansy Wong may have to repay thousands of dollars in travel racked up on her taxpayer-funded travel perk.

Speaking to reporters in Japan after news of Wong’s resignation this morning, Prime Minister John Key said Wong may be in line to repay thousands of dollars in inappropriate spending from her 2008 trip to China with husband Sammy and there “could potentially be more”.

Key confirmed Wong offered him her resignation last night and he “accepted it without hesitation”.

If she had not offered her resignation he would have sacked her, Key said.

The irony of all of this is that under the previous regime travel expenses were a tightly held secret. Pansy Wong and her husband have been un-done by transparency and that my friends is a good thing.

Wong said she had failed to live up to the high standards set by Key and had resigned as a minister.

“This action follows questions about use of my parliamentary travel entitlement to pay for my husband to travel within China at the end of 2008.

“Although the trip was a holiday, my husband did conduct some business. Further, I am not able at this point to give the Prime Minister an assurance that this is a one-off situation.

She can’t give an assurance that it isn’t a one off….so there’s more? Oh just f*ck off already.

Penny Hulse and other troughers elected to the new council are whinging about their pay.

Greedy Little Piggy - Penny Hulse

Deputy mayor Penny Hulse said on the basis of workload and expectations, her 20 fellow ward councillors were underpaid.

“The pay scales treat us as though we are members of small boards. They do not recognise the jobs we have been given.”

“They have been set by people who don’t recognise the job we do, how much work or time is involved.”

She said she wasn’t sure what an appropriate salary was, and although they shouldn’t be the same as MPs, “our jobs are similar”.

She was willing to settle into the job, but wants salaries reviewed.

Her comments were supported by North Shore councillor George Wood, who said he was “surprised” by the remuneration levels.

“That it’s at the level it is has surprised me, given the work we are expected to do. But given we are the first cut, so to speak, we will just have to wear it,” he said.

“This is something the Remuneration Authority will have to look at.”

Waitemata and Gulf councillor Mike Lee said the salary was “not sufficient”.

“It’s meant to be a super city. The council is meant to undertake the responsibilities of what was a regional council and a city council, but that is not reflected.”

This is what happens when you elected old duffers and pinkos. They always want a bigger suck of the sav. Poor old George Wood looks confused, ho on earth can he express surprise at the remuneration levels? As for Mike Lee and Penny Hulse, well they are just pinko troughers looking for more public money to wallow in.

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide rubbished the request, saying that if councillors didn’t like the pay they shouldn’t have stood, since salaries were announced three months before the election.

In June the Remuneration Authority announced the new mayor would receive $240,000, and councillors an $80,000 base rate, with more allocated to committee chairs, though the exact amount is unclear.

So no surprises there then, except for poor old George.

Whau councillor Noelene Raffills also considered the salary low, but said she didn’t put herself forward for money.

But Howick councillor Jami-Lee Ross disagreed, warning his colleagues, some with business incomes, to resist being greedy. “We knew what the salaries would be before we put ourselves forward, so why would we now ask for more?”

Good to see some councillors can see the bleeding obvious. Haven’t seen a pinko councillor though with similar perspicacity.

No wonder Len Brown was under pressure from the pinko councillors to have 55 committees. All the more meetings to fill up the trough with ratepayer cash.

I think with a spendthrift Mayor and a whole bunch of pinkos on the council we should be vigilant on how they propose to spend our money. The warning signs are already there, that though there will be no credit cards, the Deputy Mayor looks to be establishing some nice expense accounts for the councillors.

Lockwood Smith has backed down after painting himself into a corner over transparency.

Speaker Lockwood Smith has caved in to pressure to release MPs’ spending on their travel perks after political parties rebelled against his initial stance by releasing their own expenses.

Today Dr Smith re-issued the last quarter’s expense disclosure with the cost of MPs’ travel perks included again.

He said he would continue to include the costs of that travel in the future.

In a statement he said he had released the full set of expenses because of confusion created by the decision of some parties to release their own expenses.

Good stuff. Now perhaps he might get back on track to being a great Speaker like we discussed the other week, by opening up all of Parliamentary Services spending to the OIA, especially the Leaders offices of all political parties. Let’s see how committed Labour and the Greens are to transparency now, not just on travel expenses but all spending inside parliamentary services. I suspect their commitment to transparency is decidedly hollow.