If sorry’s worth saying it’s worth saying well and Rodney certainly did that.
His apology was the mea culpa maxima:
No excuses, no justification or blame laying, none of the qualifications or the carefully worded apology for contrition.
It was a text book triple A apology – he admitted his mistake, accepted responsibility and has since made amends – repaying in full all the money claimed for his partner’s overseas travel.
He said sorry and I believe he meant it.
But was it enough?
The original mistake which turned him from pointing the finger at other’s profligacy with public funds to putting out his hand for his share, was compounded by his initial reaction. The I-didn’t-make-the-rules-I-was-just-playing-the-game response was what did the most harm.
How much will depend on the voters in Epsom who put him into parliament and have the power to remove him in 2011.
Regardless of whether his constituents accept his apology, Hide’s use of perks to which he and his partner qualified, but against which he’d protested in the past, may bring them to an end
John Key has said MPs will have to get their heads around new transparency for their allowances.
It will be a brave, or stupid, MP who courts public displeasure by using the perk for private pleasure now.
It may be that Hide’s actions prove to be the final prick in the travel perks balloon.
But if MPs lose a perk which was taken into account when their salaries were set, the public needs to be prepared for a pay rise to compensate next time the Higher Salaries Commission considers what they’re worth.
November 10, 2009 at 6:48 am
The Herald in pasrticular has been scathing to say the least on Hide.
Yet they don’t want to know about Peters and Dunne whose parties both owe the tax payer over 200K between them as I understand it. I emailed Claire Trevitt yesterday after her bitter attack on Hide suggesting the Herald should now turn its guns on those two.
No response to date and unlikely to be one I suspect.
November 10, 2009 at 8:14 am
The Herald has degenerated into nothing but a tabloid scandal rag.
November 10, 2009 at 7:31 pm
De difference is that the Humpty Dumpty preached one code while practicing the other.
‘Tain’t the eligibility, it’s the two-facedness.
That said, as with English, this is small onions compared to the physical rsource problem.
Trevett ignores that, too. As does Tim Hunter, Dene MacKenzie…..the list is long.