Hon John Luxton National
Economic & Regional Development Spokesperson

23 July 2001

Government fails on promise to be frugal

The promise by the Prime Minister of belt-tightening by her Ministers has been exposed by the Commerce Select Committee as a sham, following questions from National's spokesperson on Economic and Regional Development, John Luxton.

"Jim Anderton acknowledged that ten of his Ministry of Economic Development staff were currently working in ministers' offices and that their salaries were being paid for by his Ministry," Mr Luxton said.

"Yet only $43,000 was paid by Ministerial Services for these ten fulltime employees, the remainder being paid out of the Ministry of Economic Development's budget.

"This approach gives a false impression of the real cost of what has been a 20 percent increase in staff in ministers' offices under the Labour Alliance minority Government.

"The Government and the Prime Minister show they are being far from frugal with taxpayers' money when it comes to the significant increase in staff numbers in ministers' offices," Mr Luxton said

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>