I’ll be upfront right here and now and say that I’ve been to several sporting events at the invitation of corporate box owners, often joining MPs from other political parties. But I think MPs, and particularly ministers, need to be careful about which invitations they accept. For example, it would be a very bad look for Steven Joyce to be seen in a Telecom corporate box around the time he is making significant decisions on broadband. On the other hand, I can’t see there being any issue with National backbenchers accepting corporate hospitality from government banker Westpac. They’re not going to have any influence over whether the government banking contract is renewed anyway.

I think New Zealand has come a long way in recent years on issues around transparency. Our elected representatives are now subject to a quite stringent declaration of interests process, and some of the loopholes (for example the ‘annonymising’ trusts that Tracy refers to in her column) have actually been closed so that MPs can’t hide where they have their money stashed, unless they truly don’t know where it is themselves (in other words it’s in a blind trust, although I myself remain skeptical about just how ‘blind’ those trusts actually are).

However, I’d also point out that those who report on our activities aren’t subject to any such transparency, and I think that’s an area that we should also look at. I’ve met just as many press gallery journalists in corporate boxes at the Westpac Stadium as I have other MPs. Given they have huge influence over what the public get to know about the decision-making of elected leaders, why shouldn’t the journalists also have to be transparent about that? When journalists receive free travel, which they often do from the airlines, why shouldn’t they have to declare that? (I do acknowledge that many will put a small statement at the end of an article of someone else has paid for their airfares, but they are not obliged to do so by anything other than their own ethical standards).

With the government increasingly using military aircraft to get around the country and around the world, why shouldn’t the journalists who travel with them on those same flights have to be transparent about that? If we as the Opposition were to critiscise a Minister for using an airforce plane rather than a commercial plane, and the journalist covering that critiscism had also been a passenger on said military aircraft, surely their readers are entitled to know that?

I’ve had quite a bit to do with a number of press gallery journalists in my time working in politics and, for the most part, I think they’ve got incredibly high ethical standards. But I think most politicians do as well. If the fourth estate want to argue, as they do, that we can’t rely on a politician’s word and sense of ethics and we do, in fact, need more rigid and transparent rules around personal interests, why shouldn’t the same argument apply to those who report on our activities?

I think this is a really interesting area of discussion, and I congratulate Tracy for bringing it up. I’m looking forward to the phone ringing off the hook over the next 24 hours as her colleagues stampede to report my call of greater transparency on their part. Oh wait…

The Guardian reports:-

David Cameron spent £680,000 of taxpayers’ cash on Downing Street

So here are a few of the questions that remain unanswered:

• Did John Key know about the $50,000 donation when his Chief of Staff met with the VIP transport officials?
• Does John Key think it was wise to speak at a fundraiser organised by BMW dealer Team McMillan while his officials were in the process of signing-off the BMW fleet replacement, particularly given Mr McMillan has publicly stated he wants to be involved in selling the old ones?
• What was the actual date of the Team McMillan fundraiser?
• Who else attended the Team McMillan fundraiser? Was anybody from BMW NZ, who are supplying the new cars, in attendance?
• Who will be responsible for disposing of the old BMWs? Will it be BMW NZ, or will the Department be responsible?
• Did John Key discuss the VIP fleet at the fundraiser with anyone, if so, who?
• Have any of the original BMW fleet been sold yet, if so, who to?
• Why does John Key keep claiming the deal for the new BMWs was Labour’s, when his own officials admit there was no obligation to take up the renewal option and they could have stuck with the old ones without any penalty?
• What did his officials discuss with his Chief of Staff at the 28 July 2010 meeting? Why didn’t his Chief of Staff brief him on it?
• Why does John Key keep claiming his government didn’t know about it when both Nathan Guy and Bill English signed it off, his Chief of Staff clearly knew about it, and he himself signed at least 4 documents that referred to it?

I think these are all legitimate questions and John Key should man-up and provide a few answers. Unfortunately he has a history of being slippery with the facts until he is caught. Do you remember how the story of his Tranz Rail shares changed back in 2008? He didn’t admit to the extent of the holding until after he knew TVNZ knew how many he really had. In fact, he lied first and told the truth only after the truth was told for him.

After upgrading the BMW fleet, beefing up their personal security, and boosting their own pay packets with a new tax-free accommodation allowance, we now learn that Key has just spent $215,000 repainting Premier House, the official Prime Ministerial residence.

That’s a heck of a lot of money and one can only assume it must be a pretty gold-plated paint job. It’s more than some people can afford to spend buying their entire house.

Answers to written Parliamentary questions have revealed that National has just spent $187,996.93 repainting the outside of the Prime Ministerial residence and another $30,023.83 painting the fence and sprucing up the garden.

I simply don’t buy John Key’s argument that it wasn’t his decision, he’s the responsible minister, the buck stops with him, as it did with the BMWs and the security budget blow-out. It’s about time Key manned-up and starting taking a bit of responsibility.

Now I think it’s good that Kiwi PMs have protection, but does anyone seriously think he needs to take a bunch of security guards with him when he goes on holiday at his exclusive, compounded holiday home in Hawaii? Helen Clark almost never took DPS with her when she was on personal travel overseas. Michael Cullen often refused DPS protection when he was acting PM.

Since John Key became PM there has clearly been a big increase in the number of DPS hanging around with the PM. I somehow doubt that the threats to the PM’s life have massively increased since the blokes have been back in charge.

Of course, it could be that the massive $800k budget blow-out is explained by the NZ Herald article this morning:

Prime Minister John Key has revealed he is not immune from his boot camp mania … his personal guards have set up a personalised boot camp for him … He said his Diplomatic Protection Squad personnel sometimes changed his early morning runs to something more challenging – including carrying full jerry cans “if they’re trying to make things difficult.”

Presumably $800k for Key’s own ‘personal trainers’ aren’t one of the ‘nice to haves’ Key and English say we’re all going to have to live without? But then again, so far it seems it’s everyone else that’s going to have to learn to live with less, not the ministers themselves…

All of this begs the question of how ACT will manage without a Leader in Parliament? Over the road the penguin is jumping up and down about Hone Harawira’s taxpayer-funded travel, but at least Hone is a duly elected MP. Will any taxpayer resources go into supporting Don Brash, the non-MP ACT party Leader? Will he have access to their Research Unit and media team? Will any of ACT’s taxpayer funded promotional material have the Don’s mug on them? Will any of their parliamentary staff be reporting to the party Leader?

I’m sure after the fuss they’ve made about the use of parliamentary resources in the past, the National government will go out of their way to ensure the ACT party don’t inappropriately use theirs…

Stuff reported last week that Key has used the helicopter four times in the past 3 weeks alone, including the now infamous trip from the V8 supercars to the golf club. So what were the other three trips? Looking on Key’s Facebook page, the possibilities are endless. Did he use Airforce helicopters to visit the Timaru skateboard park? Perhaps he used them to make a ‘cameo appearance’ at the NZ Shearing Champs in Te Kuiti?

The PM and other Ministers should be able to use the airforce where it is necessary to carry out their official duties. But there is a pretty clear distinction between attending to official matters of state and using them to jet between photo-ops that are clearly little more than campaigning.

Every quarter Parliament and Ministerial Services issue a breakdown of spending on air travel by MPs and Ministers, but those figures don’t include the use of military aircraft. That’s an anomaly that needs to be fixed. As a general rule, I believe that use of military planes and helicopters by VIPs should be disclosed and the public should be able to judge whether the matters that they were attending to justified their use.

Meantime John Key and his Cabinet should start practicing what they preach and stop splashing taxpayer cash on photo-ops for the PM. At the last election John Key chartered a plane so that he could flit from one photo-op to the next. He should stick to that approach rather than suck military resources into his campaign machinery.

First Key claims nobody in the government knew about the BMW fleet upgrade. Then he admitted English and Nathan Guy signed it off. Then we discovered his Chief of Staff was in the loop. Then we found out Key himself signed-off on it but never read the reports he was signing.

Now we learn that ‘extras’ were ordered like heated seats and mobile offices, despite Key telling Parliament that no such ‘nice to haves’ were in the deal. Seriously, does anyone in government know what is going on? We’re talking about millions of taxpayer dollars here, and it’s not like there hasn’t been considerable public interest.

I asked a few questions of the government about their recent decision to upgrade the fleet of ministerial BMWs. The answers were quite interesting. Apparently one of the BMWs to be based in the lower South Island will have heated seats. This is justified on the basis that it will be used for ‘long distance’ and ‘long duration’ movements. Could that be the trips Mr English takes to his pretend home in Dipton by any chance?

Interesting to note that only one of the BMWs has this added feature. Could it be that Mr English asked for it specifically? I know he suffers from a bad back, but surely in this era where the ‘nice to haves’ are out the door, he could chip in and cover his own expenses? Did he ask for this, or did the pixies at the bottom of the garden that he’s so fond of decide that he should just have it?

The new cars will have mobile office facilities and internet access too. One can just imagine Mr English sitting there in the back seat reading the latest Woman’s Weekly and checking his Facebook page. Nice to know that he’s being well looked after, what with the fresh flowers in his office (he’s one of the govt’s biggest spenders) and that nice house in Karori (not with the extra hour a week of cleaning mind you)…

At least one group, however, has been been immune from National’s wage freeze, and that’s National ministers themselves. Late in 2009 John Key announced a new ministerial housing allowance. After Bill English was found out rorting the old scheme, Key decided it was easier to blame the ‘complex’ rules rather than discipline English. As a result, Ministers have pocketed an effective pay increase.

At the end of 2009 I showed how Ministers could rort the new scheme to give themselves a new tax-free pay increase. Now we know that, contrary to Key’s claim the new scheme would be cheaper, the cost of housing Ministers in Wellington increased by 8 percent, and it’s likely to rise further as more Ministers switch houses.

The number of Ministers claiming over $10,000 per quarter has increased from 5 to 11 since Key’s new scheme was introduced. The worst part is they don’t even need to prove that they’re spending the money on accommodation. They can rent out a cheaper place and pocket the difference. It’s another rort, and this time it’s got Key’s signature on it.