Gerry Brownlee MP
National Party State Services Spokesman

11 May 2008

Labour’s golden handshake pledge a joke

News of yet another golden handshake for a State-owned-enterprise boss shows Labour’s promise to end such payments was empty election-year rhetoric, says National’s State Services spokesman, Gerry Brownlee.

Mr Brownlee is commenting on news that former Transpower boss, Ralph Craven, received a $350,000 exit package when he left the job. Media reports say he was paid $202,000 for the final three months of his five-year contract, which he never worked.

“This is exactly the sort of practice Helen Clark promised would end when she campaigned to put a stop to golden handshakes in 1999.

“Since then, there have been a series of payouts for state sector employees worth millions of dollars - all funded by the public purse.

“Taxpayers have been betrayed by a Government which says one thing and does another.

“This reckless use of taxpayer money comes as no surprise. This is the same government that has made an art of wasteful spending in the state sector, has allowed the bureaucracy to blowout to record levels, and squanders more than half-a-billion-dollars of public funds on a new train set.”

ENDS

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