How unsurprising. ACT's leader has spent the last nine years alleging rorts throughout Parliament and the public sector, and in the meantime his own party's president has been running a rort of her very own, and feathering her own nest with public money. But then, this is not the first time. We only have to look at the arrangements for their electorate staff (who were all purportedly helping constituents from ACT's research unit in Wellington) to realise that ACT is quite happy to rort the system when its to their advantage.
I look forward to seeing consistency from Rodney Hide, and to him denouncing his own party's rort with the same bombast he reserves for public servants caught partaking of real coffee and chocolate biscuits at public expense. But somehow, I doubt it...
I predict ACT will bow out of Parliament - followed by some pretty big debts.
ReplyDeleteWho exactly would be financially culpable? Would it be Catherine Judd personally? Rodney Hide?
Expect huge legal battles for those trying to recover their money.
If they're incorporated, no-one, unless malfeasance can be shown.
ReplyDeleteACT's pooling of Electorate Agents saved taxpayer money. The 140,000 people who voted for ACT would expect no less than for it to use its parliamentary resources wisely. You can't do that if you have nine agents in nine different offices with all the equipment and budget expenditure that implies, twiddling their thumbs. Far better to put those people to good use when they are not dealing with constituency issues and give our voters value for money. Anything else is the same sort of mentality that saw well staffed post offices in the middle of nowhere back in the '80s that employed half the local population.
ReplyDeleteThe Awaroa issues are surprising to me, but seem to date from before Hide's leadership. I expect further enquiry will show those payments to be above board.