Murray McCully
National MP for Albany

Rodney Hide
ACT MP

26 April 2002

New Zealand Post spent a total of $1,877,352, over $150,000 per month, on 13 law firms, five Queen's Counsel and two barristers during 2001 according to papers released by the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee today.

MPs Murray McCully and Rodney Hide say the figures suggest that NZ Post "has quite a lot of explaining to do".

"Clearly, the adversarial, obstructive attitude Post has to its owners representatives is contributing to these costs. Retaining the most expensive lawyers in the land to drag Richard Prebble into Court, to contrive ways of avoiding reporting full executive salaries, to avoid answering select committee questions, and to defend themselves in the Privileges Committee against charges of misleading Parliament is proving very expensive."

"Bearing in mind that NZ Post has its own in-house legal staff to do the day to day legal work, these legal costs are outrageous and explain why, for many months, the company has been trying to withhold this information under the Official Information Act", said Messrs McCully and Hide.

Ends

© Scoop Media