troughing

Trevor Mallard appears to have been hard at work on behalf of the taxpayer… all over the country

Off to first of many tests of the season 2nite. Hope @CoryJane1080 has stunner and @Powza13 gets plenty of time on field.

July 30, 2011 5:47 pm via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

@BelindaMcCammon @cactuskate2 @nikkikaye was on plane tonight - intense discussion at time but sure available now

August 5, 2011 1:02 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Auckland stuffed. Meetings for Africa. Test tomorrow. @Powza13 starting Might drive round a bike route I'm going to ride in fortnight

August 5, 2011 9:32 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

“@richardboock: bledisloe cup auckland: cool, overcast, no wind, no rain expected...” - sort of no real weather - from Wgtn perspective

August 6, 2011 10:17 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

@Powza13 really enjoyed first 60. Loved the break up the left which lead to Ma'a's try on right.

August 7, 2011 9:44 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

U 2 off to Blues 2gether ?@Powza13: Middle off the plane so me and @CoryJane1080 new sleeping pozy... No room! http://t.co/fyfcnMI”

August 13, 2011 9:02 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

@onThePaepae @cactuskate2 @dpfdpf good ride, good first Lap chatting with @Whaleoil mainly showed that weight is very important on bike :)

August 22, 2011 12:21 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Auckland. Clark lecture. Always good.

August 23, 2011 8:02 pm via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Off to inspect Forsyth Barr stadium. 2nd game today. Then watching @PiriWeepu1049 @CoryJane1080 at a flat

August 27, 2011 6:40 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Otago's new stadium working well even if result not to liking. Fans need to learn not to stand in aisles cos those behind can't see.

August 27, 2011 9:40 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

“@clarecurranmp: Onam Indian festival Yes Dunedin. then out to Mosgiel #LabourOfLove” Miss India NZ 4me 2nite with @grantrobertson1

September 10, 2011 11:55 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

@NZQandA been on plane now Chch

September 10, 2011 2:03 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

@DavidServille next weekend will walk but from MT Albert.

September 18, 2011 1:51 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

No prize for guessing which MP jumped the coffee queue - eight surprised flyers one not.

September 26, 2011 7:56 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Pt Chalmers seafood festival as preliminary to RWC Ireland v Italy duties. Crayfish, scallops, chowder, pinot both. Not a stuffed shirt here

October 1, 2011 4:43 pm via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Dunedin great combination of Irish and students. Vibrant zone in octagon Place to go after match tomorrow.

October 1, 2011 11:14 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

@edmuzik @jacindaardern @h_yd_n missed this. Don't often go to gigs out of Wellington. Great night. Tired this morning Riding with D Clark@9

October 2, 2011 8:07 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

It is like Ireland had home game. Dunedin is green. No not that sort of green @metiria

October 3, 2011 12:06 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Flying lost romance 30 years ago. Dunedin to Ak via work in Wellington today Invercargill to Ak via Chch Friday not eagerly anticipated

October 3, 2011 8:17 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

Except of course it hasn’t as you can see from all the tweets.

Then of course there is the mad dash to Auckland for the Netball.

I have only gone back to July. I am sure there are many more trips. The funny thing is for some reason Trevor Mallard seems to coincidentally have “work” meetings in the same place that Rugby and Netball games occur at the same time. Looks like from the photo above that he is certainly turning into a fat little piggy at teh trough.

That is a serious lot of travel for the member of parliament for Hutt South. Must be a big electorate.

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?

Leigh Auton is set to get his pay off for his obfuscation and delaying tactics over the still secret Volare dinner.

The boss of Auckland mayor Len Brown’s former council looks set to get a top position in the new Super City council.

Leigh Auton, who received a $171,700 redundancy cheque when he left Manukau City Council in October as chief executive, decided not to apply for a job at the Auckland Council, saying he would instead setup a consultancy business.

In December last year he formed Auton and Associates Ltd which he runs from his Manukau home.

But now Fairfax can reveal Auton could be appointed director of the Property Council Controlled Organisation (CCO).

At the CCO appointments committee next Thursday the $35,000 appointment will be debated and voted on. It is understood Brown wants Auton in the job.

Auckland Council insiders have said the agenda item will be held behind closed doors during a confidential segment of the meeting.

This man has no place on a CCO. Like Len Brown he has truth issues. He ran interference and was still running interference for Len Brown right up until the polls closed by refusing to answer questions put to him by the Ombudsmen’s Office over the still secret Volare dinner. Leigh Auton and Len Brown were prepared to die in a ditch over Volare and now the pay off for Auton’s tricky behaviour seems to be a cushy board placement to augment his 6 figure pay out for finishing his contract.

There is no way he should be in consideration and there is no way that the decision to appoint him should be behind closed doors. What has happened to Len’s promises of open-ness and transparency that he campaigned on?

Len’s other pal in line for CCO jobs, Gary Troup, is also one of those enjoyed a joint birthday lunch paid for by Manukau City ratepayers to the tune of $244. Oh what a nice cosy coincidence.

Len Brown campaigned on opening the books, yet he stills maintains his silence over the last set of books he maintained along with Leigh Auton.

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

Just in case you all missed it all in the rush to denigrate a former National minister there is this case of a former Labour minister troughing it up fraudulently. Turns out that it isn’t only National/NZ First MPs that are dodgy.

Former Labour cabinet minister David Butcher has lost an appeal against his convictions for fraudulently claiming air fares under a scheme for former MPs.

Butcher, aged 51, an economist of Hataitai, Wellington, was found guilty of three charges late last year. He was fined $10,000 and ordered to pay reparation of $9219 for trips to Washington, Los Angeles and Beijing.

Former MPs qualify for a rebate on international air travel.

Because of Butcher’s length of service in Parliament, from 1978 to 1990, he was entitled to claim 75 per cent of the price of a business class return fare from New Zealand to London each year.

The rebate did not apply if Butcher was travelling on business or if some source other than Butcher was paying the rest of the fare.

The Crown said Butcher was disqualified from getting cheap fares for the three trips on both counts.

If this was the private sector being caught out you can just bet Pedobear Power or someone similar would be screaming for legislative changes to remove the temptation of rorting taxpayers, but since it is ex-MP perks we are talking about here there is fat chance of that happening.

Why is I that the first thing pinkos do when caught with their hand in the rate/tax-payers till is to blame the staff. Here was me thinking that they were for the the workers not agin them.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee has had to pay back more than $400 after it was found he double-dipped on hotel and lunch expenses.

The double-dipping, blamed on a staff error, was discovered only after the Herald on Sunday requested Lee’s council expenses and credit card spending.

It revealed that Lee paid a $358.70 bill from the Greymouth Kingsgate hotel in February 2008, and $65.50 for lunch at Ponsonby GPK in September last year, using his ratepayer-funded credit card.

He also signed off an expense form for reimbursement for the Kingsgate and GPK bills. The money was paid into his bank account.

Lee told the Herald on Sunday it was an administration error made by a council staff member.

Yeah I just bet it was an administrative error by staff. For a start, how come he had the receipts to submit again, where did the personal statement come from to suppport the receipts? Why do pinkos die i the ditch for such tedious amounts?

Last I heard Clark had beggared the party so much they still had $600k debt. The selfish bitch tried to save her own skin by breaking the bank.

At least we can thank Kevin Brady for making them pay off the eight hundy they stole to win the 2005 election. that and the contributors to this video at the time.

It is time for a remake. those interested in a remake/new song and contributing please contact me via e-mail.

Meanwhile Labour hasn’t learned and done it again. This time, not a pledge card but a brochure that is largely fact free. We should demand out money back. One commenter on this blog stated when I ran the story a week before NZPA (they should pay, shouldn’t they?)

The correct figures are that the current tax is $10.03, and that the new tax amount will be $12.03 giving a total of $92.25, so an increase of $2.00. Where their figure of $13.54 comes from I can only guess, but it looks fairly simple.

They calculated the current GST as 12.5% of $90.25, which equals $11.28 (where your figure comes from I am assuming), then they are adding 2.5% to the $90.25, which equals $2.25. $11.28 + $2.25 = $13.53.

When working out the amount of GST in a price you cannot just subtract 12.5%, as the 12.5% is calculated on the amount excluding tax. The full calculation would be (90.25/112.5)*100 = 80.22. So the current GST is $10.03. A simpler method is to divide the price by 9. 90.25/9 = 10.03.

So not only do we have suspect people on brochures, we have the Labour party not able to perform correct calculations. Of course that is never a surprise.

Last night on Larry Williams NewstalkZB show The Nightwatchman said that it fitted the rules. That surely means the rules are as crooked as the politicians who made and monitor the rules.

Parliamentary Services needs to be opened up to the OIA process, and it needs to be have the rules established by people who do not directly benefit from the rules and their construct. We don’t allow conflicts of interest in other professions, so why do why do we insist upon it in politics.

Pay it back Labour, pay it back. Go tap Owen Glenn if you have to, like you did last time. Or sell some of that multi-million dollar property portfolio you have. Pay it back.

Maori troughers at the ready....get set...

bureaucracy

Well, well well, what have we found here. It seems the MOH is wanting to hand out potentially hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to “investigate Maori tobacco control”. Hang on a minute, isn’t that a job for the MOH. Oh silly me, of course not. Let’s fire out a government tender and dole out taxpayer money by the trough-full to people who never have and who will never be able to measure any success or reduction in the number of Maori smoking rates. But hey, we need to look as though we’re doing something.

But wait, isn’t the Maori Affairs Select Committee holding an inquiry into the tobacco industry and trying to come up with new innovative solutions? The answer to this is yes, but the MOH knows far better than the MPs on this Select Committee and, at the end of the day we (the poor taxpayer via MoH) will be the ones who have to control this, so lets get in early. Plus it will help us in our relationship with Auntie Turia and Honest Hone for sure.

So what’s all the fuss about? Have a look at the Services specification. Wow, haven’t we seen this before???

1. Facilitate another series of hui to “scope out the Terms of Reference of the Maori Tobacco Control Steering Group” Read that as travel to exotic locations to discuss tobacco issues, such as Hawaii, New York etc
2. Set up a Steering Group of Maori tobacco control leaders and/or tobacco control sector leaders. Let me guess, veteran trougher Shane Kawenata Bradbrook?
3. Support the Steering Group with secretariat and project management services. We can really cream it here, bro, all the cuzzies can score a “job”.
   
4. Undertake sector scoping exercise… including a stocktake of Maori tobacco control services and a needs analysis of the Maori tobacco control sector. Mmm isn’t that the role of the MOH, or are they incompetent?
5. Build effective network including face to face communication that’s supported at national, regional and district levels. Chooooice, free travel around the country to see the whaaanau…sweet azzz bro.
6. Develop strategic plan…which will enable informed decision making by the MOH. Shit bro, that’s a bit of work, never mind our white cuzzies in the Smokefree Coalition will do that for us, for a little bit of kai and some brown envelopes.

But they must have to deliver something for the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars about to be doled out. Let’s take a look…

Key outcomes

Oh how choice is this bro? Here’s what we have to deliver…

1. Raise awareness of Smokefree lifestyles. Sweet azz…that’s so easy bro
2. Bash a few mokupuna who have been caught smoking out the back of the Marae and say we’ve prevented the uptake of smoking among Maori youth
3. Travel on the taxpayer around the country, waving tinorangitanga flags, have some koreo and kai with the distant whaaaaanau and charge it all to the government. Maybe they could give us those cool azz credit cards like Parekura used to have?
4. Bring a Maori voice to inform public debate about Smokefree Aotearoa – We’ll get Shane Kawenata Bradbrook to do that – he’s an expert bro
5. Build on our knowledge of how to trough the $57 million the government throws at trying to stop people from smoking, and we should be able to wrangle some choooooice business class seats to exotic destinations like Shane does.

Only problem, cuzzies is that this contract is only for a year, azz if bro… but (smirk), bro don’t worry about that cos Auntie Turia will look after us…

But wait, there’s more, and this is the really, really good bit. We can set the price for all our extensive and hard work we haven’t even done yet! Cool one bro. Shit, if Shane can get $250,000 per year, we must be able to get a bit more than that?

Let’s get into the trough. Whoooho

(P.S. Don’t tell Ryall or Key about this and we’ll say it’s all part of Auntie Turia’s Whanau Ora policy and hide it in there).

Len Brown promised to resign if his ratepayers ever asked him to reveal who he had dinner with at Volare. This ratepayer did, and did it under the LGOIMA.

On Thursday I receieved my response from his lickspittle CEO, Leigh Auton. So too did the Sunday Star Times, and they are not happy, having laid a complaint with the Chief Ombudsmen about Len Brown’s secrecy.

HE CHIEF ombudsman is investigating Manukau City Council’s refusal to name those whom mayor Len Brown wined and dined at an $810 dinner paid for by ratepayers.

Brown has said he will never name those at the September 27, 2009, dinner – held at Italian restaurant Volare just days before his birthday and paid for on his mayoral credit card.

“Will I give you the names? Never,” Brown told a council committee meeting when asked to justify the dinner, insisting it was business-related.

Unfortunately under Council guidelines for use of the Purchasing Card he cannot do this. This is what the SST and I am trying to enforce. What I can’t fathom though is why Len Brown is prepared to die in the ditch over $810.00. He has made this relatively small dinner a do or die principle to keep quiet, and for why? If he simply had complied with council policy and provided the details people wouldn’t be wanting to know why the secrecy. It would have died as an issue from day one.

Now it is extremely interesting to for us to see who he is wanting to die in the ditch for. Why the secrecy?

As you could see from my LGOIMA request, I was very, very specific as to the questions I asked. they could be answered with a simple yes or no answer and thereby wouldn’t breach anyone’s privacy. Very simple isn’t what the Mayor and his Chief Executive want though, they want complicated and therefore they want this story to be big.

I responded to Leigh Auton’s letter:

With all due respect Mr Auton this response fails to meet the requirements of the council’s own policy and the requirements of the LGOIMA

Your reliance upon the Privacy Act to answer yes or no questions as outlined again for your benefit is stretching the intent of the council’s policy and the LGOIMA Act.

I ask again

6. Was Conor Roberts in attendance at the “fundraiser? YES or NO
7. Were any members of the Mayor’s family in attendance? YES or NO
8. Was David Lewis in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO
9. Was Noel Robinson in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO
10. Was Richard Jeffrey in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO
11. Was Mike Hutcheson in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO

If these people weren’t in attendance then there can be no breach of policy by answering NO. If they were in attendance then again there is no breach of privacy. In fact it could be argued that the there was no privacy as this “meeting” or “fundraiser” as you and the Mayor euphemistically call this ostensibly private function because we as ratepayers paid for it.

The Mayor’s diary also points to the fact that this wasn’t a fundraiser at all, simply an Opera Night at Volare, a night of entertainment rather than business.

Please reconsider your response. I will also be asking the Ombudsmen to consider your response as well.

In a separate request I had asked for the Mayor’s diary for that night, I also asked for Leigh Auton’s and the Deputy Mayor’s but he hasn’t sent those through. As you can see from the diary there is no fundraiser, it is simply a Opera Night, exactly as advertised by Volare. the only people to claim that this night was a fundraiser were Len Brown and his spin doctors, and even then their story didn’t hold water. Just to remind readers of the spin, lies and obfuscations surround this dinner, it was explained that the night was a fundraiser for a local, up and coming Opera singer, this blog proved that it wasn’t a fundraiser, and the dinner to ‘support a local emerging artist’ turned out to be for a Gold Coast based professional singer whose manager and fundraiser also happens to be one of the guys in charge of the Telstra Clear events centre, the very same organisation that is supposedly paying for one of Borwn’s spin doctors and campaign managers, Conor Roberts.

There is a reason why Len brown is dying in the ditch for this, and since they refuse to say who we must then take it as read that the refusal to even say who wasn’t there as tantamount to an admission that they were. Until Len Brown is forced to keep the council’s own policy we can only but speculate as to who was there, one thing is for sure, it certainly wasn’t a fundraiser, and it sure as hell wasn’t council business.

My letter to the Ombudsmen was sent Friday.