Duncan Garner from 3News blogs today on Chris Carter’s travel costs:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Politics/DuncanGarnersBlog/tabid/1135/articleID/124372/cat/934/Default.aspx

Opinion: Chris Carter’s Globetrotting – $131,000!

Title says it all doesn’t it. $131,000. It is not a little bit of Money is a huge amount for one MP to spend.

It seems Chris Carter as a Minister had a total disregard for the public purse.

Yup.

We now know it was more than $131,000 in just six months. And that’s just the international travel!

So let’s look at where Carter went, who he took and what it cost.

In January 2008 he went to the UK between the 7-9 January and Spain from the 15-17 January. He took his partner Peter Kaiser. Airfares cost $7246.00. Other costs, like accommodation and meals came to $9,969.92. Did he have a European holiday in between appointments? What did he do on behalf of the NZ taxpayer? Who paid?In April he went to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and China for 11 days. Again he took his partner Peter Kaiser. He also took his press secretary Michael Gibbs. Airfares cost $28,696.00 Other costs totalled $28,712.22. All up – that’s more than $57,000. I never knew South-East Asia could be so expensive.

To be fair Carter was representing the Prime Minister at the 2008 Asia-Pacific Interfaith Cooperation for Peace and Harmony Conference in Cambodia. He then went to China to join Helen Clark and Phil Goff for the signing of the Free Trade Agreement in Beijing. I was there too. I covered it. Why Carter, Kaiser and Gibbs were there continues to beat me. There were a lot bags to carry though. He and his party then went to Thailand and Vietnam for bi-lateral and portfolio visits.

He went to Australia in April for two days. No big deal right? But how come flights for him and a staff member cost $4526.00? Try and get a flight across the Tasman for that amount? Is he taking the piss? Did he hire the plane out? Who books this stuff?

Then in June Carter, Kaiser and his press secretary went to Chile and Peru for the week for the APEC Education Ministers’ meeting. The three spent more than $38,000 on airfares to get there and just short of $10,000 on expenses. $48,000 all up. But $38,000 on airfares is phenomenal. I do remember covering APEC myself in Peru at the same time – we flew economy class through the US to cut costs. We looked at flying direct, but going through the States was cheaper and we were in the middle of a recession and this was the only cost effective to do it. We actually had to take three flights – a leg through Miami on the way back to cut costs. The return flight cost TV3 just under $3,000.

So Carter’s bill tops $131,000. It is embarrassingly large, no one is questioning that.

Labour is doing only a half-arsed job defending him as well. There’s a lot of disquiet in the Labour caucus about Carter. He hasn’t been labelled the Minister for Overseas Travel for nothing. But I guess this just shows that Carter, and perhaps those who made his bookings, had a total disregard for the public purse. Perhaps it’s systematic within Parliament. If it’s someone else’s money, then who cares – that seems to be the prevailing attitude around here.

Parliament and Ministers and their staff need to get serious.Ordinary taxpayers work bloody hard for their wages. An overseas trip for most Kiwis is a privilege. Carter and all his colleagues across the board need to be reminded of that.

$131,000 in just six months is two and half times the average wage.

So when staff and Ministers are booking their next flights, remember who is paying.

Duncan sounds really pissed off towards the end of the article. And so he should be. He is the political news editor for 3News he sees these politicians much more than any other regular member of the public sees them. And good on him for being outraged. It is our Money that is be wasted on these trips. There are far cheaper ways to travel, sure MPs need to go overseas for events, but wasting thousands of dollars in the process is simply reckless. If an employee of a company did this they wouldn’t be an employee for very long.

Ha. I knew I wasn’t hearing things wrong.

From 3News last night:

“Within 90 minutes of that press conference 500 million people had logged onto staples centre dot com causing it to crash multiple times…”

http://www.3news.co.nz/Jackson-fans-scramble-for-chance-to-win-memorial-tickets/tabid/418/articleID/111252/cat/100/Default.aspx (click on watch video, 3mins 55 seconds in).

What was funny about this statement was first how insane it sounded, but then it got me thinking, this was not a live cross, it had be prerecorderd. So why did no one editing pick up on the error and do a retake of it?

The actually figure connecting was 500 thousand people. http://dailycontributor.com/staples-center-server-crash-michael-jackson-memorial/5925/

Of more interest would be if it had been 500 million. There are currently around 1.5 billion people with access to the web (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). 1 in 3 people would have to have connected within 90 minutes. Now that would be an impressive feat.