troughers

There is nothing like a bludging politician shuffling at the trough.

Baroness Ashton will be entitled to £400,000 at the taxpayer’s expense over three years for doing nothing after finishing her five year term as the European Union’s foreign minister at the end of 2014.

Research by The Daily Telegraph has established that the Labour peer, who finishes her job as High Representative of foreign affairs in October next year, will be paid £133,500 a year, 55 per cent of her basic salary, until the end of 2017.  Read more »

Give a politician a trough and they will find a way to get stuck right into it. They are the same the world over.

Look at these pommy MPs rorting housing allowances…looks like the Greens have been advising them:

At least 32 MPs have been found to be claiming rent for second homes on their expenses while simultaneously letting out property nearby, an investigation reveals.

The MPs, including former Cabinet ministers, are claiming expenses of up to £20,000 a year each for rent, as well as receiving money from properties that were often bought and refurbished with taxpayer assistance.

Last month it was disclosed that 27 MPs were letting out their second homes while charging the taxpayer for renting another property.

Tonight’s Channel 4’s Dispatches programme found five more — three MPs who were carrying out the practice in London and another two who were renting and letting properties in their constituencies.

The MPs now found to be renting out homes in London are: John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the culture, media and sport committee, the Tory MP Mark Pritchard and John Denham, a former Labour cabinet minister.

Labour’s Michael Meacher was also found by Dispatches to have moved out of his home in Oldham to rent a new property, while Pat McFadden, a Labour former minister, did the same in Wolverhampton.

The rules of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) state that “members of Parliament must not exploit the system for personal financial advantage”.

Parliamentary Services expenses remain outside of the Official Information Act. How can we trust that the troughers aren’t snuffling up stacks of our cash from the trough?

In the UK a tough line is being taken now with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority being ordered to release information:

Westminster officials have been ordered to publish MPs’ expenses claims in full so the public can judge whether they are genuine.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), which oversees expenses payments, has been told it must disclose the receipts handed in by MPs to back up their claims.

The ruling by the Information Commissioner is a victory for The Sunday Telegraph, after Ipsa refused to release three receipts we had asked to see.

Graham Smith investigated its refusal and found that the authority had breached the Freedom of Information Act. He gave officials five weeks to hand over the documents or face prosecution for contempt of court.

Ipsa said it was studying the ruling. It must decide whether to appeal. If it concedes defeat and releases the receipts, it will set a precedent for the documents to be viewable by the public.

John Mann, the Labour MP who has called for greater openness on expenses, welcomed Mr Smith’s ruling as “very sensible” and said MPs would be more careful about the claims they submitted if they knew the receipts would be displayed.

He said: “Transparency affects behaviour positively. Every time there’s an attempt to hide things, using whatever excuse, it creates the impression that there’s something wrong going on. Generally these days I think there isn’t, but the public have a right to know.”

Ipsa was set up to restore public confidence following the 2009 expenses scandal, which led to the jailing of four MPs for fraudulent claims – including one, Jim Devine, who submitted fake receipts for £3,000 of cleaning and £5,000 of printing.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

We think our troughing politicians are bad, check out these Aussie troughers and their waste. Even embattled Speaker Peter Slipper is deep in the trough:

THE federal opposition communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, spent $26,000 on phone calls and faxes in six months. And the Speaker, Peter Slipper, took a trip to New Zealand to better understand its Parliament’s acquisition of art.

The facts and figures are contained in the Finance Department’s records of politicians’ entitlements, claimed between July 1 and December 31 last year, which were released by the department yesterday.

Mr Turnbull spent $13,608.04 on October 20 alone for ”Mobile PDA overseas calls”, the records show.

Mr Slipper said his trip to New Zealand was also to compare parliamentary practices and innovations.

Mr Slipper, who has long faced intense scrutiny over his travel entitlements, tabled a report of his two-day trip, in which he had four meetings, but did not list the cost.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

Wonders will never cease. There are people who get paid more than a MUNZ wharfie and do less.

Kiwis were gobsmacked to learn that wharfies at Ports of Auckland cream $91,000 per annum, getting paid for 40 hours but doing just 28 hours of work per week.

Lawyers and Accountants wistfully gazed out of their windows, looking down on the Port jealous that they were slaving away for much less.

Now they have another group of fat cats to be jealous of…MFAT troughers…and handy-men:

Lucrative allowances are nearly doubling the pay of some overseas-based foreign affairs staffers – including a maintenance worker making as much as $154,000 a year.

Documents seen by The Dominion Post show it is not uncommon for overseas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff members to collect $100,000-plus a year in allowances, and even workers on roughly the average wage are collecting six-figure sums.

Once extra costs such as rental accommodation and school fees are taken into account, a person earning $51,874 in salary – such as a maintenance worker at the New Zealand embassy in Moscow – can collect about an extra $100,000 once direct employee benefits including allowances, phones and internet are included. Rent is not included in that figure.

MFAT refused to comment on the figures yesterday but confirmed it was taking “appropriate” steps over the leak of information.

MFAT workers get more in allowances than wharfies get in wages!

This is outrageous troughing. Kiwi MFAT troughers are living it large at taxpayer expense.

ᔥ the tipline

Germany makes its diplomats pay rental when they are posted abroad, knowing that (like NZers) they are renting out their homes during the postings.  And the Israelis must fly economy (including ambassadors) regardless of the flight’s duration, except in exceptional circumstances – if they’re going straight into a major meeting, for example.

Please send in more juicy titbits of MFAT troughers living large.

In the press release she signed with 27 other Auckland loons, Green MP and Waiheke Local Board member Denise Roche has thoughtfully reminded me that she has held the joint role of local board member and Member of Parliament since the November 27 election.

I wonder – is she keeping both salaries and perks though? Jami-lee Ross resigned the Monday after his win int eh by-election. Labour too made much of double-dippers in the past so why are they remaining silent on Denise Roche?

As a backbench List MP, Roche would be earning $135,000 pa, more or less, plus perks like free phones, travel etc.
As a local board member, Roche would be earning around $35,000 pa, more of less, plus perks like free cellphone, free laptop etc.

So, questions for the media to ask:

Given that Denise Roche has not resigned as a local board member since becoming a MP, is she drawing both incomes? Has she been keeping the extra money, or is she giving it away to a charity (like Sam Lotu-Iiga did)

Is she keeping 2 laptops, 2 phones etc? If she hasn’t returned both phones, how do we know she hasn’t given one to a relative or friend or political ally to use as a nice free phone or laptop that is cost-centred by the ratepayers of Auckland..

I think we should know.

Len Brown is not the only council parasite. Read this from the Taranaki Daily News:

Almost $1000 was spent by the New Plymouth District Council wining and dining a potential employee.

A member of the public found a payment notice for the June dinner at L’Escargot Restaurant, totalling $922.25 and charged to the NPDC, on the street and handed it to the Taranaki Daily News.

Inquiries by the newspaper revealed the dinner, for eight, was part of the recruitment process for a senior member of council staff.

“For a very small number of senior vacancies where the position involves important relationships with key partners and sponsors, we will sometimes arrange a dinner or other social occasion to observe the preferred candidate’s social skills,” council communications manager Nick Maybury said.

He said the occasions were useful to introduce the “preferred candidate” to others who were not on the selection panel but whose support for the final appointment was important.

Mr Maybury said he had attended the dinner but would not name others in the party for privacy reasons. “The type of people we would invite includes relevant general managers, elected representatives, external stakeholders and their partners.”

Unfortunately for Mr Maybury I have already proved that you can’t keep dinner guest secret, I forced Len Brown to name his dinner guests at Volare after 6 months and much complaining to the Ombudsmen. The good folk of New Plymouth should likewise chase this issue.

Being secretive and furtive like Len Brown is so un-becoming.

Bill English’s brother score a primo position uncontested.

Finance minister Bill English says the public service must “trim the fat” – but his brother has landed a lucrative contract at the Health Ministry.

Former Electricity Commission general manager Mervyn English is working on a new Health Sector Forum. Another consultant Paul McCormack, a former GP, has been employed to give specialist advice. Neither job was advertised.

The ministry would not say how much they were being paid.

My sources tell me that this guy is a veteran trougher and a tosser to boot. I am reliably informed that he will be getting in the order of $300k p.a. equivalent as a contracter. Not bad for an uncontested position.

There are two things that I think we should be doing to combat this sort of blatant cronyism/nepotism:

• In the public service anything over $50k should be contested; and
• When the guy’s brother is the minister of finance, especially this minister of finance wouldn’t you (the  Min of Health) exercise a little more prudence?.

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.

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.