Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Correct-a-mundo! Call me old-fashioned, but if I had any solid evidence the Opposition Leader made not one, but two, false statutory declarations I’d have handed it on to the relevant authorities PDQ. Wonder why Pete never quite got around to it…
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Sacha,
To be fair, Sacha, perhaps we need to leave determinations of criminality to the courts. Trial by Question Time never ends well.
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Sacha,
Serious question – if we were talking about departmental CEOs defending their “right” to taxpayer-funded travel for life, which MP would be first in line to take a whack?
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Ross Mason,
For once, The Herald actually deserves compliments. Could have done without this though:
Dean Knight, a senior lecturer in public law at Victoria University, said while MPs were not technically employees whose perks were in contracts, it would be difficult to remove them without compensation.
He said a case could be made for stripping Taito Phillip Field of the privilege on the grounds of strong public interest, because of his convictions. Speaker Lockwood Smith is expected to do so by the end of the month. "But for other ex-MPs, just because there is a public outcry isn't a strong enough countervailing public interest argument to take it away without compensating for it."
Mr Knight said the MPs had a reasonable expectation that the perks they were offered would not be discontinued.
The president of the Association of Former Members of Parliament, Graham Kelly, said this week that the association would defend any attempt to strip the perk from ex-MPs, describing it as a legal entitlement and part of their conditions of employment.
Entitle-itis praecox. With friends like Mr. Kelly, who needs enemies?
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Excuse me, Rich? Say what you like about Pansy Wong (I can't stop you), but she wasn't exactly Faafoi-ed into Botany from the leader's office.
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I feel kind of squicky defending Pete Hodgson's honour (mostly because I don't think he's got any), but I think he can be acquitted of charges of Winston-esque dog whistling. What's more interesting is how careful he's been to avoid accusing Pansy and Sammy Wong of any criminal wrongdoing -- knowing full well, I suspect, that he doesn't need to.
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As Phil Goff notes in Claire Trevett’s story in the Herald today, there are legitimate uses for the travel rebate beyond a strict definition of Parliamentary business, or what leaders’ budgets are able to cover. I do want MPs to have contact with the world.
Would that include the taxpayer picking up the tab for MPs-slash-election strategists to "observe" party political electioneering in Sydney, London and the United States over the last couple of years? And, no, I'm not just picking on Labour here.
I'd also love to know how many public sector PASers out there, have had to pay for their professionally relevant "contact with the world" out of their own pockets or constrained and tightly audited budgets?
Look, Russell, I know what you're getting at there and don't totally disagree. But if someone like Goff -- who hasn't exactly been on minimum wage the last thirty years -- can't save up enough for the occasional tiki tour, who could?
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Actually, Matthew, it was a terse, ungentlemanly and spectacularly unhelpful suggestion that Russell should take his “in context” and stick it in the shade. In the context of teachers and nurses being told to show “wage restraint” and “fiscal discipline” year after year, $400K a year isn’t chump change at all. I’d also like to list civil servants who’ve had their reputations shredded by their political lords and masters (including dear Phil Goff), for sums that are petty cash by comparison – seen in the proper context, of course.
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REDACTED FOR GRATUITOUS IRRITABILITY
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Up Front: That's Inappropriate!, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yes. I’d have been okay with Amethyst having it calmly suggested that her skirt breached the rules, or even that it was inappropriate –
Which, I suspect, is a conversation dozens of stressed out, underpaid and under-appreciated deans have from Kaitaia to the Bluff every day of the week. Without slut-shaming. 'Cause that's what adults do.
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