The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through the Official Information Act that the Ministry of Primary Industry (MPI), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) and Ministry for the Environment (MFE) collectively spent more than $150,000 to send ten staffers to the Bonn Climate Conference. This cost covered travel, accommodation and meals amongst other spending.

With MFAT refusing to fully release costs due to time constraints, the cost to taxpayers will almost certainly be higher than this.

Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:

“Bureaucrats will take any excuse to hop on a plane for a holiday. In this case, ten staff hopped off to Germany at a cost to the taxpayer of 15 grand each. It seems like some staff spend more time overseas than they do in the office these days.

“That’s without even touching on the irony of logging nearly 230,000 miles combined in air travel - including legs in business class - to talk about how other people should reduce their emissions. As always. it’s rules for me and not for thee.

“New Zealand already has a world-beating way of reducing our emissions through the Emissions Trading Scheme, although ironically international air travel is one of the few things not covered by the ETS. If these bureaucrats want to put their money where their mouths are, they need to put away their suitcases, attend by zoom and save the taxpayer some money whilst they’re at it.”

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