ACT Leader Defends Staff

ACT New Zealand Leader Richard Prebble today said the attack by the New Zealand Herald on ACT staff members was scurrilous.

"Every member of the ACT parliamentary staff is on a contract negotiated by Parliamentary Services. The suggestion by the Herald that these contracts are 'secret' is nonsense.

"ACT New Zealand - being a small, list party - has from its inception employed multi-skilled, multi-roled staff. We simply don't have enough staff to be able to open electorate offices throughout New Zealand. Our voters, however, come from all over the country. So we have developed new e-politics techniques to service voters from North Cape to Bluff. There's nothing secret about this.

"The Herald seems to suggest that there is something wrong with the fact that according to their calculations, ACT's good management has produced $150,000 productivity savings. These figures sound like the economic gains of the America's Cup.

"From the taxpayer's point of view, the only issue is that no-one is suggesting that there is a dollar missing, and the only accusation appears to be that ACT are good managers. What's new about that?

"I particularly object to the newspaper's innuendo that ACT staff members could be involved in any sort of rort. ACT parliamentary staff members are highly professional and very hard-working. The taxpayer gets very good value from them," Mr Prebble said.

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