Houses of ill repute

Can we PLEASE, please, please, please, PLEASE [after this post] give the housing allowance thing a rest now?!? I’m banging my head against the wall so hard here that the ensuing dent is reducing the pecuniary interest I have in my property. But that is not the biggest problem. The worst thing is this never ending tale of dross is also seriously depleting my will to mock Bill English. It’s that grave.

I mean come on, I can enjoy a good attack on Mr 21% until the cows come home. But the location of his primary residence and the money he claims for it are so far from the biggest problem this country faces right now you need a TARDIS to travel between them.

Every time it seems like we’re moving on with our lives, the inevitable new revelation that drags this crappy story out another couple of weeks emerges. We learn it’s not just National MPs that own property they then rent out to Parliamentary Services for various uses. Surprise, surprise – everyone does it.

And why not?

Imagine an MP rents an Electorate Office from a private landlord, only to be told a while later that it is going to be sold. The MP must face the prospect of moving. It is a great office. It has all the space they need and is in a location that everyone in the electorate identifies with as where the MP is. The MP purchases the property so as to stay put. Is there anything wrong with that? Can someone explain to me what the earth shattering problem is that’s so scandalous it knocks the recession back to the travel section?

Likewise, if an MP is renting a property in Wellington. A spot that they like. Walking distance to Parliament, perhaps. Or just somewhere they feel comfortable. Why can’t they buy the place and be happy in the knowledge they can stay as long as they want without it being sold from under them? It might be an investment. But if an MP can invest that money anywhere, Dipton say, and get a private tenant (unlikely, I know but bear with me) who pays the rent. That same MP then rents a house in Wellington off a private landlord with the rent covered by their allowance – What’s the difference? The taxpayer pays the same money either way. The MP has their mortgage paid just the same.

With the exception of Premier House, I really don’t care one jot where on earth Boll lives most of the time. To be honest, I think slightly more of him if he wants to spend as little time in Dipton as humanly possible. The real question is: If he was not in Parliament, would he live in Wellington? Possible, but I assume it unlikely. So the taxpayer assists him to live in the city where, as a Minister, we need him to be. He also needs to retain a place to crash near his constituents. What other job requires you to live in two places at once?

I know this is not the most popular opinion in the room – but MPs and ministers are not actually that well paid. Their salaries are not huge when you consider the hours they work and their lack of privacy. They have 24/7 jobs. When you compare their remuneration with comparable roles in the corporate world they only earn a fraction of the going rate. Part of the reason they have a whole raft of allowances and perks is because it has been politically impossible in the past to increase their salaries. So we find other ways of compensating them. It’s actually unfair to take that money back now. If it happened to one of my union members I’d be outraged.\

But all that is nothing, NOTHING compared to the massive distraction this has caused. Every single second the media spend on this is time they could be spending asking what the government is doing to tackle the recession, to tackle unemployment and to fix the problems in health and education that National promised they would fix. But it’s not just the media. I urge all political parties to stop trying to score cheap points on this and use the time to attack the government on issues that matter – there are a lot of them.

- Dolan.

Comments

[Dolan]

...and WHY, why, why, why, WHY can't I fix the font size on this f**king post??? I've been trying to get it right for an hour now! GRRRRRRRRR. This laptop is going out the window shortly...

[Clint Heine]

Ha ha ha. I could sense your anger more with that font.

[George Darroch]

I couldn't agree more. Labour has been wasting all of our time. Mind you, the alternative, talking about actual issues is also a bit of a waste of time in NZ, because the media tends to ignore that. (what a pity Labour decided against reforming TVNZ back into a public service broadcaster)

[Dolan]

Phew. Font = fixed.

George, the Greens have been wasting our time on this too. As did National when they smelt blood on Chris Carter's travel. You are correct about the media though.