Maryan Street
Foreign Affairs Spokesperson

26 August 2011

Pay your bills, Mr McCully

Not content with destroying New Zealand’s foreign aid reputation in the Pacific, Murray McCully has now added insult to injury by not paying the required departure tax in the Cook Islands following recent visit there, Opposition Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Maryan Street says.

“While the Minister’s commitment to the Pacific is admirable, his destruction of our international reputation as a reliable aid partner, his insistence on giving untendered contracts to his mates and now, his failure to ensure that even the most pedestrian of obligations is met, are not,” said Maryan Street.

“I am sure he will want to blame an official for this ‘oversight’ but why has he left it until an investigation is being mounted in the Cooks to put it right?

“Did the new High Commissioner to the Cook Islands, McCully’s old friend John Carter, tell him and other members of the delegation it would be okay to skip the country without paying the departure tax? Can we have his assurance that the matter has been remedied promptly?

“There is no surer way to leave a bad taste in the mouth of one of our nearest neighbours than by skipping out without paying the bills. With payment of the bill needs to go an abject apology,” Maryan Street said.

ENDS

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