Editorial: Perk-buster exposed

THE PRESS

HYPOCRITE? ACT leader Rodney Hide

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OPINION: Rodney Hide has more than once been tagged with the unflattering nickname of Hippo – in deference both to the thickness of his skin and his squat appearance.

The fashionable head shave has contributed too, but this week a new reason for the epithet has emerged. Caught with his snout in the perk trough he is supposed to detest and also exposed for telling his truth – and then being forced to apologise for doing so – the ACT leader's hippo-crisy is so startlingly obvious that the damage to his credibility should prove politically terminal.

It was, of course, as a perk-buster that Mr Hide stridently clamoured for the country's attention. He stomped about the countryside presenting himself as the taxpayers' best friend, exposing his fellow parliamentarians' predilection for high and fancy living on the public purse. A target of his zeal has been the MPs' travel perks – one of which states that long-serving MPs who entered parliament before 1999 are entitled to huge subsidies on overseas travel.

This means Mr Hide was acting within the rules in the MPs' handbook when he claimed $25,000 towards his girlfriend's airfares while the pair toured the world in order to look at supercities and (ahem, say it quietly), attend a wedding. But legal entitlements and moral rights rarely appear on the same page, and MPs who fall back on the former in attempting to justify breaches of the latter invariably find themselves in trouble.

Mr Hide made more of the wrong sort of headlines this week after firing barbs about Prime Minister John Key's workload and achievements one year into the job. Speaking during a breakfast – itself controversial after being revealed as an ACT Party fundraiser rather than an appearance by a Minister outside of Cabinet that consequently ought to be free – Mr Hide made some unflattering comments about the boss, unaware that his quips were being duly noted by a Fairfax reporter in attendance. He then attempted to browbeat the journalist into not reporting the remarks, claiming they ought to be treated as "off the record," and ultimately offered a back-tracking apology to Mr Key – who accepted them, at least publicly, in good grace.

Mr Hide, then, is revealed as a man who is against perks except when he grabs them for himself and who changes his belief sets depending on the audience. Just another politician, in fact. He appeared to go through some sort of personal transformation when he found himself on the popular – and, as of yesterday, axed – New Zealand rendition of Dancing With the Stars. He will need more than a fancy quickstep to waltz his way back into credibility.

Sadly, his is far from the only political snout at the trough. Fellow ACT MP Sir Roger Douglas, equally strident about containing government spending, claimed a small fortune from the public purse on a jaunt to London to visit family. At the other end of the political spectrum, Maori Party hothead Hone Harawira's sideline trip to Paris, also revealed this week, has been equally damaging to his own party's credibility, even if he does carry the extra expense. His appalling response to being questioned over the trip will have the anti-Maori brigade salivating. MPs enjoy calling themselves honourable, but should not have to ponder long or hard about why they feature so poorly in public polls ranking occupations.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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