Duncan Garner: They Spend Because Nobody Stops Them

Politicians love restraint when it applies to everyone else.

They tell families to tighten their belts. They tell businesses the cupboard is bare. They tell hospitals, schools, councils and charities there is no magic money tree. Then Parliament turns around and burns through more than $200 million in a year, with MPs’ domestic travel alone costing taxpayers $3.4 million in just nine months.

That is not democracy. That is entitlement dressed up as democracy.

Ella Dickson from the Taxpayers’ Union nailed the real problem: “We can see that they’re spending taxpayer money, and we can see the amounts of it, but we can’t see where it’s going.”

Watch the full episode below

That is the scandal. Not just the spending. The secrecy.

Rawiri Waititi reportedly topped the travel and accommodation list at around $273,000. Not the Prime Minister. Not the Finance Minister. Not a minister carrying a major government department. Rawiri Waititi. Taxpayers are entitled to ask where he was going, why it cost so much, and what they got for it.

That is not racism. It is not a political hit. It is accountability. The person paying the bill gets to ask what was bought.

The same goes for Green MP Hūhana Lyndon, reportedly clocking up about $100,000 in flights in nine months. A Green MP. A party that lectures the rest of us about emissions, flying around while households are told to drive less, consume less and feel guilty about everything.

You can almost hear the boarding call for hypocrisy.

And this is not just a left-wing problem, so nobody on the right should get smug. Shane Jones’ Canada trip was budgeted at about $33,000 and ended up closer to $63,000. There was a limousine on standby. There was a business class upgrade. There was the usual shrugging about officials approving things and rules being followed.

Dickson’s response was dead right: “No employer in the real world would justify or allow their employee to double a budget on a work trip.”

Exactly. In the real world, that would be hauled over. In Parliament, it becomes an explanation.

Then there is the Wellington accommodation allowance, which stinks. Twenty-eight MPs claiming more than $1 million between them through a housing supplement worth up to $52,000 a year. Some MPs own homes. Some have long-standing links to Wellington. Some appear to have arranged their affairs very neatly indeed.

Dickson called out the wider failure clearly: “We have to open the books.”

She is right. Open them. All of them. The flights. The hotels. The allowances. The upgrades. The purpose of the trips. The dates. The costs. The lot.

Other countries publish more. New Zealand should too. We are not some fragile little village where MPs get to hide behind vague totals and trust-me explanations. If they are spending public money, the public deserves detail.

Because this is not government money. That phrase should be banned. There is no such thing. It is money taken from workers, renters, small business owners, pensioners, parents and everyone else paying GST on groceries and petrol tax at the pump.

Dickson put it plainly: “New Zealand citizens don’t pay taxes for work trips to Canada or to pay off mortgages on holiday homes.”

That is the line. That is the whole argument.

MPs need to travel. Ministers need to work. Electorates need representation. Fine. Nobody serious is arguing politics should be run from a kitchen table on Zoom.

But when ordinary people are being told to go without, politicians should not be operating like the rules are written for their comfort.

They spend because nobody stops them.

So stop them.