@Hollie

It is not the duty of every responsible member of society to run for parliament. Are you saying that everyone with an opinion should run for parliament? We'd have 4 million people standing at every election then! That would just be absurd.

Bill English has decided to run for parliament and become a minister, and is now a representative of the people. It is the duty of every responsible member of society to hold our representatives responsible.

You also seem to think that Bill English "scored the cash" for Invercargill and Southland. Considering the construction of the buildings has taken 4 years, it is safe to presume that the decision to fund the facility was made under a Labour government, and when the Invercargill electorate was represented by Labour MP Mark Peck.

The only cash Bill English has been scoring is from ministerial services for himself.

Firstly, not really a news story.

Secondly, nice to see one school in the country getting adequate funding to give their students what they need. (Our's can't even afford to put an adequate fence around it's borders through lack of govt funding.) But hey, we're only a Primary school, and all we will be teaching is National Standard Literacy and Numeracy next year anyway so who needs extra funding for PE and the Arts.

@Brendon

I would have thought one of the big reasons for becoming a constituent MP is so you CAN push for more funding etc to make your area better.

Good on Bill for scoring some cash for his constituents. I certainly don't whinge when my areas of interest are indulged above others so why should I begrudge another group for getting something which interests them?

If you don't like it Brendon, why not put yourself in a position to actually make changes (do the hard yards, RUN FOR PARLIAMENT AND BECOME A MINISTER) rather than sit back and complain?

It's your duty as a responsible member or society to run for Parliament if you don't like the way things are being done...

...or is that just too much effort and you prefer the ease of sitting back and criticizing?

Haha, so Bill English is opening a (supposedly govt funded) facility in his "home electorate" which would never have been granted funding if he was in charge of the countries finances at the time it was proposed.

Seems funny how the Nats are more than happy to cut the ribbon for such facilities when they policies they are implementing will restrict future provision of such community facilities.

Unfortunately this means that there will be no ribbons for labour to cut when they get back in.