Wednesday, May 16, 2012



Back to his old habits

Back when Ministerial expenses were first released, they came with a shock: Murry McCully's habit of buying $185 / bottle wine on the taxpayer's credit card. Over the last few releases he seems to have restrained himself, but now he's back to his old habits: his latest credit card statements [PDF, p. 6] show an NZ$1200 feast for 8, including an A$175 (=NZ$233) bottle of Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay.

Again, hosting dinners is part of McCully's role, but there's ordinary extravagance (it seems usual for Ministers to drop $70 - $100 a head on food) and extraordinary extravagance. And this is definitely in the latter category.