Why so slow to confess? – updated

Why are the MPs so slow to confess they misued their credit cards?

Thanks to the media who used the Official Information Act to question spending on minsiterial credit cards, all expenditure on ministerial credit cards has just been revealed.

As I type reporters are rifling through nine boxes of records but so far only Shane Jones and Chris Carter have confessed they used public fund for private purchases.

Mis-spending public money was wrong, not fronting up and repaying the money when they knew it was about to become public is stupid.

UPDATE:

10.15AM: Former Labour Minister Chris Carter records show he spent $607.79 on kitchenware on a 2003 trip to London that was posted back to New Zealand.

After details of his kitchenware purchase were posted on Stuff this morning, Mr Carter phoned Fairfax to defend the payment and said the purchase from Politico’s of London was in fact for Labour Party posters for his office and Labour party mugs.  There had never been any suggestion from Ministerial Services officials that the spending was outside the rules.

I find spending public money on party purchases even worse than spending it on private ones.

A fuller ferry tale

The diverting ferry story on which I posted this morning has another side.

Chris Carter says he didn’t ask for the Waiheke ferry to divert to Davenport to pick him up after he’d got there by mistake.

Michelle Boag, who happened to be on the ferry, and Carter, gave their versions of the story on Jim Mora’s panel this afternoon.

The Herald story which confirms Carter didn’t ask for any favours, is here.

Apparently the ferry leaves from a different wharf at night and it’s not unusual for people to take the wrong one and nor is it unusual for the other ferry to divert to pick up the odd passenger who’s made that mistake.

Memo to Fullers: shouldn’t you correct your signage or procedures so that people are less likely to get on the wrong ferry, and staff notice when they do?

Eligible vs entitled

In the dictionary the meaning of eligible and entitled are very similar.

But in practise, being eligible for something doesn’t necessarily mean the same as being entitled to it.

An MP and his partner might have been eligible for a taxpayer funded trip

But when the MP’s colleagues had warned Chirs Carter about his spending it suggests they thought he and his partner were taking more than they were entitled to.

Is there more?

Trans Tasman thinks there might be.

In its Play of the Week  it says:

. . . But those with suspicious minds should consider how the Opposition is acting. The biggest spender, Chris Carter, snootily told media it was all a bit of politician bashing and answering for his $200,000 plus expenses was beneath him. Darren Hughes put it around National had changed the rules. But at question time?  Silence.  Normally something this embarrassing to the Govt would take up at least half question time.

If competing companies colluded like this the Commerce Commission would be all over them.  The message for journos?  Keep digging. There’s more.

 I don’t think any of our MPs have moats to clean as some of their British counterparts do. But a window into their spending has been opened and taxpayers aren’t impressed by what’s been exposed.

John Key has ordered an inquiry into Ministerial expenses but that needs to be widened to all MPs’ expenses.

Good MPs more than earn their salaries, which for some are much less than they could command in the private sector; and I have no objection to them receiving a fair allowance or reimbursement for out of pocket work related expenses.

Air travel for children and spice* to join MPs in Wellington isn’t a problem either.

But all payments should end when they leave parliament and certainly shouldn’t continue for those found guilty of corruption.

It is reasonable to ensure the system doesn’t allow stretching the rules for those still employed by the taxpayer either. There is a suspicion that some MPs are taking more than their fair share of public money, albeit within the rules, and that the rigor which is applied to other public spending is not applied to all spending on and by MPs.

That suspicion will continue until and unless a full review takes place and it is clear the rules are fair to both MPs and taxpayers.

 P.S. Trans Tasman is a weekly newsletter available on subscription. I subscribed a year ago after reading references to it in The Hive and consider the sub value for money. Whoever thought up the password for this month has a sense of humour.

*Spice n pl of husband, wife, spouse, partner and/or significant other.

Dead kids or disabled access?

A Southland kindergarten is facing a catch 22 situation because if it meets the building code requirement to provide access for people in wheel chairs it will not be able to keep children safely in its grounds.

As the Southland Times says:

 It is madness, just madness, to require a kindy to lower the exterior latch of its gate to afford easier access for the disabled, if this puts it in reach of little 3 and 4-year-olds to escape, and go play in traffic.

 . . . It might seem like there’s an element of Cock Robin to the Invercargill City Council’s assertion that it cannot issue a Code Compliance certificate because its hands are tied.

Actually, that might be right. The real sticking point does appear to be a Department of Building and Housing ruling in favour of the Building Act.

The act, bless it, does require reasonable and adequate access for the disabled.

As far as the kindy is concerned — and presumably this would apply to other kindergartens as well — this has been interpreted as meaning the external latch on the main gate must be lowered from 1.6m to 1.2m. Kindy kids are well capable of employing a little low cunning to get around that suddenly successful obstacle.

The snortworthy conflict here is that there are also requirements under our laws for early childhood education that require, every bit as implacably, that children cannot leave the centre without the knowledge of staff.

Council environmental and planning services director William Watt sympathises that the kindy is caught between a rock and a hard place.

So it is. The rocks are in the heads of the bureaucrats. It’s tempting, though unfair, to add that the hard place would be their hearts. In truth, they do, of course, understand the need for reason to prevail. They just seem to need some motivation to ensure they play their own parts to achieve this.

Among those who have become involved is Invercargill MP Eric Roy, who sees the alarming big picture of every childcare centre in the country having children at risk when they undergo re-licensing or try to make improvements to their facilities.

He says that when he asked Education Minister Chris Carter which was more important, disabled access or children’s safety, the response was that “both needs must be considered equally”.

Such an answer is palpably nonsense. Not everything balances.

Dead kids versus denied disabled? One of those outcomes actually is worse. See if you can guess which one, Minister.

At least the Minister of Building, Shane Jones, made more sense when he replied that a solution must be found that meets the purpose of both the Building Act and early childhood regulations.

Seldom do we find ourselves quite so relieved to receive a statement of the bleeding obvious.

This is the problem with one-size fits all regulations.

Of course people with disabilities should be able to have reaonsable access to public places, but that right must come second to children’s right to be safe at kindy.

When our daughter was young I occasionally invoked the this-is-a-matter-of-safety clause clause which she knew was non-negotiable. The Building Act needs to have a little flexibility to apply the same rationale so that rights of access give way to safety if they’re in conflict. 

What we need here is not so much the law of common sense as common sense law.

School boycott

Fifteen North Shore Schools are boycotting the Government’s  School Plus initiative until their dire funding situation is recognised.

In an open letter to Education Minister Chris Carter, the principals detailed Government innovations they claimed were not fully funded and had increased pressure on already-stretched finances.

The list of 21 included pandemic planning, maintaining electronic student management systems and running the healthy lifestyle programme Mission On.

We respectfully suggest you provide for the current demands before introducing new and more underfunded priorities,” the principals wrote. They said more and more schools nationally were operating budget deficits.

“We are deeply concerned about the future of New Zealand’s schools,” the principals’ letter read. “We do not concur with your statements that current funding is enough to provide a quality basic education.”

There are two issues here: the underfunding of schools and the School Plus policy.

Last week a former Balclutha principal  was charged last week with tampering with roll figures so her school received more funding. Her actions can’t be condoned but they do show the financial pressure schools are facing.

As for School Plus, it would be better to put more money into helping much earlier with the basics so that those who choose to leave school at 16 or 17 are equipped for work and life rather than keeping unwilling pupils in the classroom for an other year or two.

Some kids don’t fit in at school, are not ready for training but would be happy in work so National’s Youth Guarantee  with its carrot and stick approach  – to fund 16 & 17 year olds in approved institutuions but not allow them access to the dole – is better. It supports them in school or training or allows them to work but doesn’t pay them to do nothing.

On farms we sometimes have young people who hated school and don’t want any formal training do well when they start work. When they get over their anti-school feelings and realise there are benefits from training they’re happy to enrol in AG ITO courses, but forcing them to do that training straight from school wouldn’t work.