My post yesterday on Bill English and his mostly closed electorate offices in Balclutha and Gore has attracted some interest on Red Alert and on facebook.
A number of people commented that they were experiencing the same issues in other National-held electorates.
I’m wondering how many National Party electorate offices are actually staffed on a regular basis?
And how much direct constituency work they do and what options are open to constituents if they try to approach their local MP and are rebuffed, ignored or can’t make contact because it’s always closed.
Would be interesting to find out.
Hi Clare, unfortunately in your excitement while reading the responses on Red Alert you forgot to answer some of the excellent questions put to you about your trip to Clutha-Southland.
Were any of your electorate office staff with you when you went on this trip?
Why doesn’t the Labour Party have a list MP’s office in Clutha Southland? Who is the Labour Party’s list MP for Clutha Southland? Why aren’t they spending more time down there?
Whodunnit, you seem to be unable to read it correctly, its about the taxpayer funded offices of National MPs. Why should Labour have an office in Clutha Southland ? Bill seems to have THREE, which appear to be closed most of the time. You just worry about your boss Bill and make sure hes available to the people who voted for him to be their local MP ( even though hes not !)
The people who went to Clutha Southland were volunteers. No-one is paid. The Labour party works like that. We have volunteers who give up their time to take the party’s campaign and messages into the wider region. There is no List MP for Clutha Southland. The Labour party has three Dunedin MPs, Myself, David Clark (Dunedin North) and David Parker who is a list MP. My electorate is next to Clutha Southland so I go there when I can. Which is not often enough because I have a lot of responsibilities in my own electorate.
My staff work long hours and my office in Dunedin South is open 5 days a week from 8.30am til 5pm. Sometimes I have clinics at the weekend in Dunedin and Mosgiel.
If any of my staff wished to accompany a Labour Party organised trip into a part of the region that would be their decision and they would not be paid.
My office in Dunedin is besieged by cases of hardship, need and injustice. Most of these issues result from the impact of government policies on already vulnerable people’s lives. A member of parliament is often the last resort for people who have come up against the system and have been knocked back and feel powerful and disenfranchised. It is through these cases that you pick up the systemic injustices being wrought on people through wrong policies. I care about this stuff. My Labour colleagues care about it. I believe some National Party MPs are very good constituent MPs. I certainly don’t think all are and I’m worried that many electorates are not being well served. This post is not a stunt.
I should have said people feel powerless, not powerful
Clare out of interest who from the Labour Party is serving the people of Hawkes bay? Taranaki? Wanganui? Tauranga? Taupo? Northland? Bay of Plenty? Blenheim? Timaru? Oamaru? Invercargill?
Labour has offices in all of the electorates it holds. We sometimes have offices in other electorates which will serve a whole region but resources are very limited. The MP for an electorate has a requirement and responsibility to represent it and to have an office where people can go with their issues and concerns. In those places mentioned above, Labour does not hold the electorate.We have MPs who try to cover those areas the best they can.
rjs , who from the National party is serving those areas ? They seem to be National electorates, can you give one office that is open right now ? That has real people working for the taxpayers ?
Whanganui is a case in point , they voted for Chester Burrows but get the beast of Blenheim as a ‘twofer’ for their trouble ! .
Where’s Phil,
I rang the office of Phil Heatley, National MP for Whangarei, to make an appointment to present a $1B cheque from Save Our Rail, for social housing in Christchurch. Intially his office wanted nothing of it. But then they phoned me and offered day, date and time.
Several weeks later the press releases for the event were circulated, within one and a half hours Phil’s Office phoned and tried to cancel, giving the excuse he had to attend to matters for the annual conference. Surely his office knew of this when offering day, date and time?
We proceeded, giving the rather large cheque to his office electorate secretary.
Phil issued press releases decrying the sensible idea to can the Holiday Highway and spend a portion of the $1.7B upgrading the Auckland to Northland line and building the line from Oakley to North Port and of course housing in Christchurch!! Oh another thought this money could be used to fix the Napier to Gisborne wash out!!!
Where’s Phil?
Vivienne , Phil is probably in his chauffer driven car on some junket, maybe with his family along for sightseeing. Hes done it before !
Local MPs elected by First Past the Post will often represent only the largest minority in their electorates. I find myself living once again in an area where National dominates and the response to my letters make it clear my MP isn’t the least bit interested in my views on matters like climate change, public transport and wasting money on roads of increasing irrelevance as more and more people won’t be able to afford to drive on them. Or cutting taxes to create a deficit they then cynically use to reduce or privatise public services and assets.
Stuff like that.
It doesn’t help that many (not all or most!) of the local seats are held by the very worst sort of party hack for either major party: One Eyed with Concrete Ears.
MMP would be much improved by getting rid of local electorates entirely and removing the threshold.
Ghostwhowalks. Blaming that on Chester Borrows or even the current government is horses**t and devalues everything you say.
Vivienne, on presenting a fake cheque (you could have gone to further extents to point out it was fake, but I guess that weakens your post). Do you think people would have got much of an audience had they gone to Cullen/Clark with a fake cheque to the total of how much interest free student loans have cost? I’m genuinely interested, do you think they would have given it the time of day?
The only way Clare’s argument holds water is if Labour can hold a hand up and say “Yes! All of our sitting MPs offices are staffed and receptive”. We can take Clare’s word for her own office.
On poor behavior of MPs I note in the RadioNZ site that Philip Field finally paid for the work on his house. I suppose his office was always open for help on… immigration matters right?
Hi Clare, I was a bit confused by your answer again. So to clarify, were any of the “volunteers” who accompanied you on your photo-shoot employees of Parliamentary Services?
@ whodunnit, my question is how many staff does Double Dipton have on the public payroll down there, and what do they actually do? I assume they don’t actually turn up for work? So they must be doing something?
Clare, I’ve done some digging, and have found the following from the white pages, which you might find interesting.
Of the Labour List MPs, the following do not have any offices except in Parliament:
Rajen Prasad
Charles Chauvel
David Parker
Raymond Huo
Shane Jones
Jacinda Ardern has some very expensive real estate in Auckland City, and Andrew Little has two offices, one in New Plymouth and one in Wanganui.
Why is Labour only putting its List parliamentary resources in places where it wants to win seats, instead of having List MPs share the burden in regional New Zealand?
If you had more List MPs pulling their weight, Clare, then you wouldn’t be so frazzled with your workload. And you might show a bit better judgement as to take photos of yourself with Labour Party “volunteers” (who may or may not include Parliamentary Services staff, you haven’t made that clear) on a Saturday, complaining that Bill English’s office isn’t open, while self-evidently your own office is closed while you pull off a political stunt.
Rob S , Chester is also Associate Minister of Corrections ! . If the hat fits wear it!
Whether he likes it or not , in the eyes of his electorate , and probably reminded by the those running against him, hes accountable .
I notice that John Banks has his office at Suite 2.4 , 27 Gillies Ave Newmarket.
While the ACT NZ office is Suite 2.5, 27 Gillies Ave Newmarket.
How convenient ! he can do party business in one room and taxpayers business next door . Just as well he has a razor sharp memory and doesnt get confused easily and his two electorate agents arent doing party business.
How good of you to point out this scandal, ghostwhowalks. Did you know that Phil Twyford’s electorate office is owned by the Labour Party? Or how about Grant Robertson’s electorate office, which is owned by an affiliate of the Labour Party?
If Chester Borrows used his position as associate minister of corrections to decide that Murray Wilson had to be somewhere else because of his constituents, he would probably be accused of abuse of ministerial power.
whodonut , it doesnt matter who ‘owns’ the building, just that how can the taxpayers be sure Banks doesnt get confused , again, and has his staff working on party business.
Every other Auckland MP has offices which are very accessible and visible , even Hide has his on Broadway, while Banks is in a high rise hidden from the public and chosen so they could be next to the party HQ.
Rob S , cry me a river , he put principles before his voters best interests !
Ghost, if you can accept that Clare Curran, who may or may not take her electorate office staff on photo junkets with her to Gore, doesn’t let her electorate office staff work on party business, then there’s no reason to doubt John Banks doing so.
Whodunnit you are a troll and you are now in moderation. Please disclose who you are and are working for before you have any more comments published.
Whodunnit keeps asking me to clarify whether the volunteers on my visit to Balclutha and Milton on Saturday are Parliamentary Service Staff. Clearly, that is an attempt to get them in trouble which is not only petty but vindictive.
First, a principle. What people do in their private time politically is their choice. Second; the Public Service Code of Conduct, as I understand it, applies to almost all of the wider public service.
There are exceptions, Ministerial Advisors are not captured nor are press secretaries given the nature of their roles.
This means unless it’s in their contract, there’s no breach.
And third; no member of my staff accompanied me last Saturday. And if they had chosen to they would have been welcome.
MPs can be too busy to be available all the time.
Both my local Dunedin electorate MPs don’t usually respond to my emails.
And my own electorate MP (Dunedin North)seems to want to avoid contact on Twitter:
“You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.”
Oh Pete George let’s be honest here. I didn’t know you had been blocked on twitter, but I have unfriended you on facebook.
You are a troll. You are one of Cameron Slater’s (Whaleoil’s) tipsters. You pretend to be something you aren’t and you remain a commenter on Red Alert on notice.
I am a very liberal person. I believe in free speech, but I also believe in honesty and accountability. I don’t believe in pushing false information.
And no MP is available all the time. Some are more than others, especially if they are active on social media. I receive a growing number of cases coming to me via facebook personal messages and via my website.
The issue is whether members of parliament take their constituency and representative responsibilities seriously. List MPs have a different set of issues and constituencies and may not need, or be able to afford, physical offices. Every Labour MP works hard. I do not dispute that the National MPs don’t work hard. I dispute their representative role.
This is an important issue.
Good to see that the troll has been outed.
national must be worried.
Will we get to know who it was?
Offensive. Banned. Clare
Clare
A simple reason for National MPs not always being in their electorate offices could be that they are running the country.
You guys on the other hand don’t have to do that and can swan around in other peoples electorates doing nothing of interest to anyone except a few people who frequent this site.
Whodunit seemed to have some fair questions which you could have answered .
“You are one of Cameron Slater’s (Whaleoil’s) tipsters.”
What do you base that claim on?
“You pretend to be something you aren’t”
What do you base that claim on? I’ve been very open about who I am and what I do.
Calling me a troll is a cheap and/or ignorant shot. At times I promote and publicise what Labour (and you) do. At times I question you. Shouldn’t MPs and parties be open to scrutiny?
“I am a very liberal person. I believe in free speech, but I also believe in honesty and accountability.”
That’s not how you are acting here.
“I don’t believe in pushing false information.”
Can you clarify the intent of that comment?
What on earth are you on about Clare?
Pete George is one to the most polite, in fact irritatingly so, commenters. He always puts everything in his own name and has never been a “tipster” as you claim.
He most definitely is not a troll. Clearly you don’t even know the meaning of the word.
If anything Pete is right down the middle on most issues an provides a sane if somewhat persistant view on things.
I think you have been grossly unfair to him.
I would argue Labour MPs are guilty of this also. My local Manuakau MP (who shall remain un-named) is well known for doing the minimum and I have no faith in him helping any constituents. Moreover, I challenge any of the Labour MPs (while in government) were also guilty of taking their constituents for granted, and overlooking the needs of the local community.
What I would like to see is some policy idea debates amongst members, I have a myriad of ideas and I would love to get the chance to get on a working group, or committee to discuss it further. How does one do that?
Couldn’t not comment on this.
“He most definitely is not a troll. Clearly you don’t even know the meaning of the word.”
You’re not the authority on anything, sicknote, just good at faking it.
When dad’s money and contacts run out, there’s not much else to be fair. And it’s got to be true, I saw it on 60 minutes.
“I believe in free speech, but I also believe in honesty and accountability. I don’t believe in pushing false information.”
“What on earth are you on about Clare?”
Come on Cam, write the same as Clare.
Even Duncan Garner called you out on his tv3 blog.
No defamation case pending I take it.
The authority on F all, mate.
Fin.
“I think you have been grossly unfair to him.”
Crocodile tears on special at Nosh?
That’s the working classes for you, never look a gift sloth in the mouth
(if there were a tosser emoticon I’d have put it here).
“Please disclose who you are and are working for before you have any more comments published.”
“Offensive. Banned.”
Must be bad. In that case I guess act
Ghostwhowalks – I take it you are saying you would have then begrudgingly supported him had he used his influence to keep the Beast out of Whanganui?
That’s good, real good. You mind if I use it?
RobS , doesnt matter what I think about a hypothetical, the voters of Whanganui will make their own minds up, given the facts and gentle reminders from Michael Lhaws
Knock yourself out, bruv, I’ve got plenty for everyone.
The clean ones are always for free.
I just hope I get to do some tv with Cam, while he’s still a ‘d’ list wannabe.
:tossers icon: 
It won’t be on Campbell live though, they missed the ‘cabbage boat’, chosing to play advocate for a multi millionaire instead of feeding hungry children* .
* Got all the emails for proof, should it be required.
Looks like all the Tory Trolls such as Pete George and Whaleoil are gravitating to this site, obviously attracted to a site where the truth is relevant.
Anyone aware Hone Key used to have an Association with Fay Richwhite and he made a truckload thru the privatisation of Tranzrail which was sold for $1.00. Evidently still has a close relationship with these gentlemen.
The MP for Manukau has an office in Otara that is open and staffed daily. The Office staff and the MP are known to respond promptly and capably to all requests and aproaches made by constituents and the MP is seen and contactable at the Otara Fleamarket as well as other community functions and activities throughout the electorate.
A lot more visible than the National MPs in the surrounding electorates I would say.
Ghostwhowalks – Fair enough, I’ll cry you that river now as long as you promise to throw Michael Law’s into it.
Jack – would it not be better for the blog to have some opposing viewpoints as preaching to the converted is pointless, and hey, the ‘tory trolls’ boost the numbers (preaching to the converted extremely pointless for labour as the converted appears to have dwindled, or at least chooses not to vote..)
How many staff that work in schools did not get paid by the new pay provider???
@waterboy
Has the changeover happened? IT’s what? Only 3 years late?
” Please disclose who you are and are working for before you have any more comments published.”
Whaaat?
Free speech Clare is not something you turn on and off dependant on who is speaking. Do you require the disclosure of anyone elses identity on this blog before engaging?