Last week, when Chris Carter, Roger Douglas and Bill English were getting pounded by the media about the way they spent their parliamentary expenses, Bill said something really dumb like “haven’t you people got anything more important to talk about – like the recession?”
Well, I was flicking between stations while I was driving up to a FLAG hui in Whanganui, and guess what everyone was talking about? Parliamentary expenses.
Seems that with government cutting back on programmes, benefits and support services right across the country, cabinet ministers playing fast and loose with taxpayer-funded expenses were always going to get hammered, and that’s exactly what happened.

Up till now my attitude on expenses has been a bit simplistic. I’ve simply never bothered analysing how much it costs to do the job; I’ve just done it as hard as I can. But I was surprised at how high my expenses actually were, and I’m gonna try to cut back on costs without limiting my effectiveness as an MP.
But it was embarrassing to see all the National and Labour MPs ducking for cover, or making excuses, or getting somebody else to speak for them, or accusing the other side about how they used their expenses - they all looked guilty as sin.
Mind you, you could feel a collective sigh of relief all round parliament when Taito Phillip Field got convicted on bribery and corruption charges!! And how quickly all those MPs came out of hiding, leapt back on their high horses, piously condemned Taito’s skulduggery, and demanded that he be cut off from access to all the privileges he has accrued as an MP … like he’s the only crook in town.
Alice may live in Wonderland, but I suspect quite a few MPs are shacked up next door.
And then of course, there’s the Pacific Forum, where retiring Forum Chairman, Niue’s Toke Talagi, launched a stinging attack on Fiji’s Voreqe Bainimarama that was more in tune with the thinking of Niue’s funders than it was with the thinking of the people of Fiji.
Funny isn’t it how the leaders of the two big white countries with all the money, were able to get the leaders of the little brown countries with no money, to turn against their natural Pacific instincts to work with one another to sort out their problems, and condemn their Fijian neighbour and call for an uprising of the Fijian people.
Who’d be an MP …?