The one on the right dummy.Hemi Matenga is yet another trougher. One mission of this blog is to out those who will steal taxpayer and ratepayer money as if it was just lying in the trough for them to sup on.

Porirua city councillor trougher Hemi Matenga has not attended any council meetings or workshops thus far in 2010, despite saying in December he was “committed” to serving his community and regaining the people’s confidence.

Mr Matenga was missing from the February committee and full council meetings, a recent Treaty Partnership Group meeting and a hui with Ngati Toa.

Councillor Euon Murrell, who put a notice of motion to request Mr Matenga’s resignation in December, is unhappy about ratepayers’ money being paid to the absent Eastern Ward representative. A councillor earns $26,278 a year, so Mr Murrell estimates Mr Matenga has received about $6000 during the past three months but hadn’t earned it.

“It just reinforces my view that he should have taken heed of the vote [11-3 in favour of him resigning] and done the decent thing. By not showing up he is showing contempt for the process. I would have thought he should have at least come to the hui and contributed, but he doesn’t seem to be interested. No-one’s seen him at all.”

Allegations of theft were levelled at Mr Matenga in October after money went missing from his former employer Bodyworks. Police did not lay charges after being satisfied he did not intend to steal, but said Mr Matenga complicated matters by lying about what had happened to the money.

Oh right! the Father Ted defence, the money was just resting in the account. Lucky the cops are stupid in Porirua eh?

Popularity: unranked [?]

“Cut and Run” Phil Goff is unrepentant over nicking more than $30,000 of taxpayers money in order to fund his non-message bus tour. A minister in National resigned over inappropriate spending of just $70.00 showing far more integrity than “Cut and Run” Phil Goff. His sense of entitlement to dip into taxpayer funds to run his campaigns is repulsive

Labour’s “Axe the Tax” bus trip protesting GST increases is costing the taxpayer about $30,000 – but Labour leader Phil Goff has defended it as the cheapest way to get around the country on an issue that affects everybody.

The Labour Party has chartered the bus for a fortnight-long nationwide trip protesting against the Government’s proposal to increase GST to 15 per cent, with compensatory tax cuts that Labour claims will advantage high-income earners.

The bus features a red “skin” with Axe the Tax signage and Labour logos.

A spokesman for Mr Goff said the costs were expected to be about $30,000, including for the bus charter, the signage and other material such as signs and balloons.

He is a trougher extraordinaire. He is supping along with his party at the biggest trough there is, parliamentary funding. We can only trust “Cut and Run” Phil Goff for the figures too because all of the funding that he has availed himself of has been from a post of taxpayers gold beyond the reach of the Official Information Act. We have to trust a man known less for his honesty and more for his spinelessness, that the figures are accurate.

Not only that “Cut and Run” Goff suggests basically that if we don’t like the bus, well he could always have used his minsterial limousine.

The bus was the cheapest way to get around the country and to places that were not on main transport routes.

It would cost significantly more for him to use Crown cars to travel around in and for other MPs to use individual forms of transport. The signage was attention-grabbing and ensured people knew exactly what the MPs were there to talk about.

What a fuckwit! Not only he lies again. The bus may be attention seeking, at least he is honest about for a man desperately seeking relevance but to say that the trip ensured people knew exactly what they ere talking about is a straight out lie. They are most certainly not talking about Axing GST completely and it is they are also NOT talking about dropping GST, and most certainly they won’t be talking about removing the increase in GST should the unlikely occur and they win office at the next election, so it begs the obvious question. Just what are they talking about?

Well I can tell you that those figures are highly suspect. For a start to wrap a bus that big with a full wrap, which is what they have done would probably come in at more than $10,000. That is a third of his $30,000. The rental of the bus would presumably includes a driver because I doubt any Labour MP has the necessary Class 2 licence and P endorsement to drive the bus. Let’s assume that a driver is supplied and he drives the maximum legal hours he can including all break required by law and rest stops of 12 hours per day. Let’s also be generous and say that the driver is paid at the top end of usual bus driver rates at $16p/h. The wages bill alone for the driver is $2688.00, there would also need to be accommodation costs in there, so that adds another $1170 for the two weeks. Labour would never spring for a nice motel for the driver, they would save those rooms for themselves. We are now almost at half of the cost of “Cut and Run” Phil Goff’s $30,000.

We still not have seen how much the daily charter is, the RUC, and the diesel fuel. In a bus like that the fuels costs would be about $150 per day, but that may be light. Still at $150 per day that is the not inconsquential sum of $2100. Now we are definately over halfway on the costs.

I think it is high time that “Cut and Run” Phil Goff produced the receipts to justify his figure of $30,000. I would suggest he will refuse out right given his taking umbrage at the suggestion he is troughing at our expense. To refuse would merely confirm my hypothesis that he is obfuscating on the costs.

The Speaker too needs to start thinking very seriously about the opening up of parliamentary services to greater scrutiny by removing the restriction preventing the OIA being used to prevent the public who pay for this silliness from seeing just how much troughing is going on. If he doesn’t it can only be a matter of time before there is a whistle-blower that dumps heaps of info in the hands of a blogger.

Popularity: unranked [?]

This is a tale about four MPs expenses. It makes for an interesting comaprison between constituency MPs and scum List MPs, and between one party with a sense of entitlement and  one without the necessity to pick the taxpayers pocket excessively.

Two MP are constituency MPs and their expenses in the last release were $12,328 and $10,969 respectively.

Two MPs are scum List MPs and their expenses are $29,703 and $26,110 respectively

What the hell are they doing to rack that much up? Why the differences? Perhaps the list MPs are Ministers? Maybe they live in different parts of the country?

The answer is perhaps not surprising but it sure is telling.

Normal rules by the socialists, some are more equal than others. Preveious expense releases show the same pattern.

They all live in the same region travel on the same flights and about the same distance from Napier Airport. None are Ministers. Their expenses should be roughly the same. the only one with any excuse to be a little higher is Craig Foss being the Chair of the Finance Committee.

Turns out that some pigs really are more equal then others.

Thanks to Guido (I am but a child before his brilliance) for the idea,

Popularity: unranked [?]

As predicted on the 29th of December,

The UK is likely to get rid of 1/4 of its existing MPs, mainly as a fall out from the expense scandal. Unfortunately they are going to be replaced with another pack of bludgers who will undoubtedly find a way to vote themselves a massive pay increase so they can suck the public teat legally.

UK politicians have worked out how to fill their boots with public money now they have been prevented from having their moats cleaned on the public purse.

Obviously a backroom deal has been done where MPs won’t whinge too much or exact terrible retribution against Sir Ian Kennedy, the bloke who oversees their salary.

A pox on all troughing MPs no matter where they come from.

Popularity: 23% [?]

The Royal Society has released the latest Marsden Fund  grants.

A quick glance through and I have come to the conclusion that surely they are taking the piss.

For instance Dr CD Moon at AgResearch has been granted $760,000 over three years to study “How air affects mutation and adaptation – a dissection of the evolutionary process” and Dr AC Lyons, Dr TN McCreanor and Dr F Hutton have literally hit the jackpot with a grant of $864,000 to study “Young adults, drinking stories and the cult of celebrity”.

Good grief, do they get to follow Pork Chop around for three years?

Dr G Lear only scored $100,000 per annum for the study of  “Are all individuals created equal? Testing Hubbell’s neutral theory”. FFS surely that has already been proven time and again. Remember this plonker probably has tenure as well.

Dr Jane Kelsey, well known socialist meddler also scored two years funding for a total of $336,000 for the study of  “Confronting the contradictions of New Zealand’s embedded neoliberalism in a post-neoliberal era”. Uhhhhm, if neoliberalism is embedded it can hardly be a post-neoliberal era can it?

One can only describe these grants and nothing more than a cunning stunt to enable excessive troughing in the academic sector.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Despite veteran Maori Trougher Shane Kawenata Bradbrook, director of Te Reo Marama, taxpayer funded overseas jaunts coming to a spectacular end, he still doesn’t get it.

The repeaters in MSM including TV One’s Te Karere have picked up on this story (video), brought to you by WOBH. Incredibly, tougher Shane Kawenata Bradbrook (what’s with the Keffiyeh around the neck, is the prick a terrorist?) seems to believe that he has a God given right to continue to receive taxpayer money when he has achieved nothing (aside from flying around the world non junkets numerous times a year). In his 6 monthly reports to the MOH, which cost the taxpayer $200,000, he had the cheek to include the travel as an output and meeting his group Te Reo Marama’s objectives. However, Shane Kawenata Bradbrook can’t seem to get his messages right because on one hand he says “the MOH didn’t explain it to him” and then says that “most of the overseas travel was paid for by someone else”. Not only that he professes to represent maori but couldn’t even utter one word in maori in Te Karere!

Sources close to the Maori Affairs Select Committee have suggested that Shane Kawenata Bradbrook was trying to be a ‘special adviser” to the committee’s upcoming enquiry into the evil tobacco industry. Even WOBH has been approached to appear before and table these findings to the Committee.

Imagine a situation where all this troughing evidence was presented before the MPs on this committee, who then turn around to Shane Kawenata Bradbrook (as their special adviser) to ask why after near on a decade of troughing Maori smoking rates are still so incredibly high and after millions of dollars had gone to his organisation?

Naturally, WOBH has more evidence to demonstrate a complete breakdown in the relationship between the MOH and Shane Kawenata Bradbrook, following the damning audit report of his organisation Te Reo Marama and its fellow troughing trustee directors Sue Taylor of T&T Consulting, Marguerite McGuckin of Mid Central DHB, Leah Clark, Health Promotion Advisor, Regional Public Health Lower Hutt, and super trougher Heather Gifford from the Whakauae Research Services, Whanganui. We haven’t published those documents yet for two reasons, we wanted to see what the trougher’s reaction would be and we wanted to hold something back in case the repeaters took the story unattributed. Those documents, including meeting minutes between MOH and Te Reo Marama will now be published over the next few days to show that Shane Kawenata Bradbrook was lying when he said who funded his travel.

WOBH also understands that Shane Kawenata Bradbrook has been writing references for himself and distributing them to his disappearing friends asking them to sign their name to letters of support of him and Te Reo Marama. The man puts Rodney Hide’s audacity to shame. At least Rodney apologised and repaid the money. Will Shane Kawenata Bradbrook and his fellow trustee directors do the same?

I think I will now take up the invitation to attend the Maori Affairs Select Comittee and present my evidence in total over the utter and complete failure of Te Reo Marama and their excessive troughing.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Veteran Maori Trougher Shane Kawenata Bradbrook taxpayer funded overseas jaunts have come to a spectacular end.

The Ministry of Health has cut his funding completely justifying the exposure of Te Reo Marama and its Director by this blog.

The repeaters at the HoS though fail once again to acknowledge where this story emanated from even though they talk about documents released under the OIA. Documents this blogger released. Clearly strong words are needed to be had with Shayne Currie and the other Editors at the HoS about acknowledgment of sources. No wonder the blogosphere calls these thieving scum repeaters.

Speaking of theiving scum Shane Kawenata Bradbrook continues to spin and lie. He reckons that the Ministry of Health never said anything to him about his excessive overseas travel. perhaps he might like to clarify that statement a bit before this blog publishes the minutes of review meetings between himself and the Ministry of Health that I obtained under the OIA. I won’t publish them just now though lest the repeaters at the HoS claim the work for their own.

The least the HoS could have done was say where the OIA documents came from. I suppose I could accept an invite to their Christmas party as a an apology. (Not holding my breath)

Meanwhile Shane Kawenata Bradbrook joins the Gotcha! Trophy wall. Back to hunting more troughers….oh and there is more to come on TRM but other Government departments are dragging the chain on OIA requests.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Phil Goff has been all sanctimonious over MP troughing and travel thinking that he can drum up some support for his flagging party in this manner.

That is until today when the latest figures for Parliamentary expenses have been released and we find that the top 10 troughers are;

1. Hone Harawira $53,084
2. Phil Goff with $51,895
3. Ross Robertson with $38,308
4. Maryan Street with $37,631
5. Lockwood Smith with $37,626
6. Shane Jones with $35,074
7. Shane Ardern with $30,532
8. George Hawkins with $30,116
9. Kelvin Davis with $29,978
10. Rahui Katene with $29,339

That is on total expenses. It is far more interesting when you look at air travel alone, then the top 10 troughers are;

1. Phil Goff with $29,166
2. Ross Robertson with $25,742
3. Rodney Hide with $25,163 (though now repaid)
4. Hone Harawira with $24,330
5. Mayan Street with $21,663
6. Shane Jones with $20,735
7. George Hawkins with $20,690
8. Shane Ardern with $17,676
9. Kelvin Davis with$17,619
10. Damien O’Connor with $17,486

Looks like the top trougher MPs are almost entirely Labour. With 4% of the population believing Phil Goff is fit to run the nation he can hardly justify his excessive troughing and his sanctimonious high dudgeon attitude to travel expense of Rodney Hide and Hone Harawira.

Quite amazing that Ross Robertson, the absentee MP for Manukau East and Shane Jones a List MP figure in both lists of top troughers. Phil Goff is now officially a class A hypocrite when it comes to travel expenses.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Are there different rules for pooftahs? Looks like there is, either that or the liberal elite Lame Stream Media repeaters are going soft on Chris Crusin’ Carter.

But it appears the edict was delivered after Labour MP Chris Carter racked up more than $57,000 in travel with his partner in the first six months of the year, making him the biggest spender among MPs.

Well are there. Rodney Hide paid back his travel for the lovely Louise. Bill English paid back his housing allowance despite doing nothing wrong. The media are hounding government MPs about spousal travel but no one seems to be hounding Chris Crusin’ Carter about his excessive travel with his husband.

What I want to know is if the taxpayers paid for the camel jockeys?

Popularity: unranked [?]

The last fews days have seen me expose Te Reo Marama and Shane Kawaneta Bradbook as troughers extraordinaire. The organisation so far has lightened the taxpayers pocket to the tune of almost $2 million dollars and there is more yet to come. Despite a damning audit report the Ministry of Health continued to fund Te Reo Marama to the tune of $500,000.

Yesterday I revealed that Te Reo Marama had also gone dipping in the DHB troughs for additional funding and today I will reveal an extraordinary programme that they received funding, not once, but twice for that the Outcomes report for each of the programmes show little was actually achieved.

In July 2007, just months before the damning audit report was to be released, Te Reo Marama applied for and was granted two contracts to deliver what they describe as Tika/Pono Programmes, one for Wairoa ($29,560) and one for local schools ($27,160) in the region.

These programmes are designed, according to Te Reo Marama’s description as acting as an intervention enabling maori youth to halt smoking or if not yet smoking resist the evil advertising onslaught from the multi-national tobacco companies.

Yet the Output reports suggest that the Hawkes Bay District Health Board might have better spent the $60,000 on putting up posters saying “Stop smoking you Thickies” for all the good these programmes did.

Output Report Schools
Output Report Wairoa

If you look at those reports they are actually damning. Worse if you look closely at the contracts there is far more reporting requirements stipulated than a couple of two page reports. For $60,000 the HBDHB essentially received 4 pages of output reports at a cost of $15,000 per page and no discernable or measurable reduction in smoking in Maori Boarding schools or in Wairoa. Hell’s teeth for $60,000 you could have employed a security guard full time to check school bags that would have been more effective at stopping smoking at school, or paid a bonus for the teachers to actually remove their prodigious arses from the the staff room and patrol the grounds.

Bear in mind that the HBDHB has refused to release many more documents regarding the contracts and performance and costs of Te Reo Marama.

We are still awaiting the OIA documents from NZAID and other DHB’s to see the total size of the trough that Te Reo Marama built for itself. Te Reo Marama is jut the tip of the iceberg though. Next week we will release documents that show other Stop Smoking organisations are troughing it up even worse from the Ministry of Health and reveal documents that show that ASH and the Health Sponsorship Council are amongst the worst troughers again with little measured results. On a more serious note we will show serious discrepancies in reporting of expenditure and the reluctance of the Auditor-Generals Office to get involved.

What is clear from the case of Te Reo Marama is that there is a division in the Ministry of Health that simply doles out money willy-nilly in vast quantities and then cares not a jot for any outcomes. Only when the troughing becomes obvious do they get audits done but then they bury those and continue funding.

What is also clear is that there is an organised anti-smoking lobby out there working together to push funds the way of their mates, pat each other on the back and run interference whenever someone comes poking their nose into their cozy, comfortable little state funded world.

Only the most stupid person in New Zealand would now choose to take up smoking with all the evidence that is before us. Sure once started on smoking it is an addictive product and difficult to stop but the point is that at some point an individual made a conscious  choice to have a cigarette.

The actuarial evidence would suggest that instead of maligning smokers we should in fact be congratulating them on sacrificing themselves for the better good of the nation. Their early death and paying of extra taxes ensures that there is more to go around to those smart enough to never have smoked in the first place.

Next week we will also name Ministry of Health officials who have turned a blind eye and signed off on reports that were clearly, obviously and demonstrably false in their declarations.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Yesterday I blogged about the excessive travel and globe trotting to exotic place that Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook did in the interests of stopping Maori smoking. The statistics of course show that he has had no impact at all on the incidence of Maori smoking. However worse detail is to come.

Today I present Troughing 102 – How to keep getting funding despite a damning audit report.

From the OIA documents I have received I can confirm that Te Reo Marama obtained the following amounts in funding;

2004/2005 $219,778
2005/2006 $194,052
2006/2007 $276,052
2007/2008 $262,052
2008/2009 $61,945
2009/2010 $220,718.55

Total: $1,234,597

But wait there’s more…

I have also obtained OIA documents showing considerable funding from Hawkes Bay DHB (and what appears to be double dipping) and also have been informed about some highly suspect funding from NZAid as well. I am awaiting the OIA requests from NZAid, but I fail to see why an organisation that is supposed to be helping stop smoking amongst Maori got ANY funding from NZAid whatsoever.

For each of those years of funding shown above there are required reports that the Ministry needs to measure contracts issued against deliverables. I have also obtained those reports for the past three years to show you just how ridiculously easy it is to trough money from the Ministry of Health at least.

TRM Monitoring Report 1 July 2006 – 31 October 2006 – 29 pages of which 12 pages are copies of Letters to the editor written by Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook, newsletters from Te Reo Marama or news articles mentioning him or Te Reo Marama.
TRM Monitoring Report 1 November 2006 – 30 June 2007 – 23 pages of which 8 pages are copies of Letters to the editor written by Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook, newsletters from Te Reo Marama or news articles mentioning him or Te Reo Marama.
TRM Monitoring Report 1 July 2007 – 31 December 2007 -  23 pages of which 9 pages are copies of letters to the editor written by Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook or news articles mentioning him or Te Reo Marama.
TRM Monitoring Report 1 January 2008 – 30 June 2008 – 31 pages of which 17 pages are copies of Letters to the editor written by Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook or news articles mentioning him or Te Reo Marama.
TRM monitoring Report 1 July 2008 – 30 September 2008 – 12 pages of which 1 pages is a copy of a media release from Te Reo Marama.
TRM scoping document 1 October 2008- 30 June 2009 – 47 pages of tosh about what TRM is going to do, and what they have done.

Those reports essentially cost us, the taxpayer, $7482 a page! and yet the statistics on Maori smoking suggest we would have been better just giving the millions out as roll your own papers.

But here is the interesting point. In 2007 the Ministry of Health after funding Te Reo Marama since 1999 decided to conduct its first audit of TRM.  The audit report is damning. Despite this audit report TRM continued to receive Ministry of Health funding for what will be another three years.

The Audit Report, conducted in November 2007 by Mayhem Solutions Limited at the behest of the Ministry of Health details in its full 88 pages a list of deficiencies so great that were Te Reo Marama a listed company or indeed a normal company registered at the Companies Office would see either its shares suspended from trading or it being struck off. The 88 pages of the report shows in detail just how out of control Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook’s cult of personality was at Te Reo Marama.

Key findings of the audit report were;

• Lack of compliance by the Board with statutory obligations
• Significant number of contracted for outputs not achieved nor reported on. High risk
• No performance or monitoring measures in place for the Director (Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook). High risk
• No succession planning for key staff. High Risk
• No Board minutes of approvals of annual budgets. High Risk
• No Financial reporting against budget, even annually. High Risk
• No reports to the Board against key targets.
• No financial management processes where the Director can measure monthly expenditure against budget. High Risk
• Significant ambiguity in sign off procedures for expenses. High Risk
• No establish financial delegations established for expenditures between $500-$1000. High Risk
• No reserves, that is all funding received had been spent in contravention of the State Finance Act re: Public Monies and Surpluses
• No annual audited accounts completed since 2006
• No policy or recording of data as per MinHealth requests. High Risk……

The list goes on and on, I have merely highlighted the complete lack of managerial, board and financial controls at Te Reo Marama. Essentially all that says is that Te Reo Marama existed as the personal fiefdom of Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook and no-one at the board or the Ministry of Health saw fit to do anything about it.

I haven’t even started to outline the failings against deliverables as per the contracts with the Ministry which seemingly just kept getting signed off and approved. If this was a private company the Directors would be liable for prosecution for failing in their fiduciary duties as directors to protect shareholder funds.

Most of the the three pages of recommendations and notes about the failings of service delivery are rated as Medium or High Risk. The definition in the report of Medium Risk is “The impact or likelihood of the even occurring may result in, some instances of contractual non-compliance, financial loss impact of 5-10% of funding”. High Risk is described as “Significant instances of contractual non-compliance and/or inability to deliver against the contract, Intervention required by senior management and the Board to resolve service delivery and quality issues, serious risk to client/patient safety, and financial loss impact of more than 10% of funding”.

Essentially Te Reo Marama is a bomb waiting to go off and now because of this blog it has gone off. Worse is yet to come on this story. The 88 page audit report came about from just two days spent at Te Reo Marama. None of the Board were interviewed and no financial audits were performed.

If the auditors had spent more time there, and/or conducted a full financial and forensic audit as well as interrogated the Board members who knows what else may have been found. This report is damning enough but since that report Te Reo marama has recieved more than $500,000 in additional funding from the taxpayer.

Just what sort of control measures were or are in place at the Ministry of Health that an organisation such as Te Reo Marama can continue to trough despite egregious and outrageous failures in delivery.

Tomorrow: Troughing 103: How to be on a Board and double dip and trough as well.

Popularity: unranked [?]

This is a Whale Oil Beef Hooked Exclusive series and will be running for the next few days. The reason I can’t run this story in one post is simply because it is too big. I have obtained under the OIA a large box of papers about one organisation purporting to be at the forefront of stopping Maori smoking. The only problem is that the organisation isn’t. It isn’t in the forefront of anything other than the self promotion of its principal Shane Kawenata Bradbrook and is spending up large on the taxpayer with little observable results.

On top of that WOBH has obtained an 88 page audit report (the full report and extracts will be published in subsequent posts) of the performance of Te Reo Marama which damning to say the least. Despite this the previous government kept on funding Te Reo Marama and its egregious troughing from the public purse for an additional two years.

This post serves as a preface if you will to the coming posts on Te Reo Marama and the huge wastage of public monies that have simply been used to enrich the life of Shane Kawenata Bradbrook. One other thing should be noted, whenever Shane Kawenata Bradbrook or Te Reo Marama comes under the microscope Shane Kawenata Bradbrook resorts to threats and intimidation, this blogger is used to such threats and will not be stopped from telling this story. Shane Kawenata Bradbrook also likes to say that he is mates with Pita Sharples and Tariana Turi and so “can’t be touched”. Well we will see about that shall we?

Just by way of example Te Reo Marama was established to combat Maori Smoking yet somehow Shane Kawenata Bradbrook saw fit to expend some $77,000 on international travel in the space of just three years. These figures are obtained from the OIA documents. Not only that over the past nine years under Labour Shane Kawenata Bradbrook has visited Chicago, USA in June 2000, Helsinki, Finland in August 2003, Hawaii, USA in November 2005, New York in April 2006, Washington DC in July 2006, Cairns, Australia in November 2006, Bangkok, Thailand in July 2007, Hawai again in Oct 2007, Broome, Australia in Nov 2007, Hawaii again!!! in May 2008, and Melbourne and Tuvalu in the same month, Durban South Africa in Nov 2008, Mumbai, India in March 2009, Perth, Australia in May 2009 and finally Darwin just recently in October 2009.

He has been quite the gad-about going to all those amazing places all in the name of stopping Maori smoking. All paid for by the taxpayer. Not only that Shane Kawenata Bradbrook claims all sorts of positions that there is no evidence to suggest he even holds such as being on the Executive Committee of the World Conference on Tobacco or Health. Even a Google search cannot find any evidence of such a claim.

Clearly Shane Kawenata Bradbrook thinks travelling to New York, Helsinki, India and other exotic places  must come before the good of the people. Speaking of the people let’s look at some of the statistics that Shane Kawenata Bradbrook is supposed to be trying to affect.

46% of Maori are regular smokers compared to 21% of non-Maori
The median age of Maori smoking initiation is 11.6 years
Maori of all age groups have higher smoking rates than non-Maori
Maori smoking prevalence is 50% in low socio-economic areas compared to 26% in high socio-economic areas
Maori women have the highest smoking prevalence of any ethnic group at 49%
The smoking rate of Maori females aged 25-29 is almost 4x that of non-Maori females in this age group
73% of Maori smokers use Roll your own
50% of Maori youth have smoking mothers and 48% smoking fathers

But wait there’s more…

Mortality rate for cancers overall for Maori was 77% higher than that for non-Maori during the years 2000-2004
Lung cancer is responsible for over 31% of Maori cancer deaths compared with 17% for non-Maori cancer deaths
Cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke) death rates were 2.3x higher for Maori during 2000-2004.

Source: data from the New Zealand tobacco use survey as listed in the Ministry of Health Report on Maori smoking for the Maori Affairs Select Committee 12 June 2009.

It is clear as the nose on my face that millions of dollars of taxpayers money are being wasted on organisations like Te Reo Marama and the likes of blatant fraudsters like  Shane Kawenata Bradbrook. This blog over the next few days will expose just how wasteful that spending is and has become with a particular focus on Te Reo Marama.

Tomorrow: Troughing 102 – How to keep your funding despite a damning audit report.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Labour, perhaps the biggest troughers known to man have been caught well and truly with their pants down by the Herald on Sunday, essentially running a polling scam out of Rick Barker’s office using funding from Phil Goff’s leaders budget under the control of senior MPs and former Ministers, Rick Barker and Darren Hughes.

The Labour leadership is embroiled in a murky polling operation run by a senior MP who has instructed volunteers to deliberately deceive people about their identities and the reason for their calls.

The polls were being run from Parliamentary offices by former Cabinet minister Rick Barker, who has admitted instructing staff to use false names and claim they were calling from a company that no longer exists.

Labour Party president Andrew Little last night said all polling was out of Phil Goff’s Leader’s Budget. Little said he knew nothing about the operation. “It would concern me very deeply,” he said.

Details of the polling emerged after a volunteer involved approached the Herald on Sunday claiming the practice was “unethical”.

Andrew Little has dropped his leader right in it by essentially speaking for him and telling us all that the taxpayer is funding Labour’s polling scam. Even better, it is a Green party member who has dobbed on this blatent abuse of taxpayer funds.

The volunteer, who is a Green Party member, said it was run by Barker and, when the volunteer participated, took place in Barker’s office at Parliament on October 14.

The volunteer said Barker instructed all the helpers, including a Parliamentary staffer, to say they worked for a non-existent company called “Data Research”, and to not disclose that they were really working for the Labour Party.Barker also told staff members they could make up names to use when calling members of the public.

Even worse, when initially approached by the HoS about his scam Rick Barker denied he knew anything about it, then called back to “clarify” his position, clearly the act of a guilty party. Darren Hughes has also tried to defend the indefensible.

Barker, when questioned, initially said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. When provided with details, including dates, Barker said he would call back.

Two hours later, Barker rang and admitted he had encouraged the use of false names by callers. He said he did so to make people feel more comfortable cold-calling.

“I told them: ‘You could use another name, if it makes it easier for you to make phone calls. For example, I could be Bill’.”

Labour whip Darren Hughes, who sits on the party’s leadership council, said he was aware of the polling. He said Barker had spearheaded three polls.

But Hughes defended the use of false names and for callers to not identify that they were representing the Labour Party.

“The name of Data Research was used to get as close to a scientific result as you could, to not influence results because of the way that people feel about a particular party.”

He said the use of false names in polling was common: “I’m sure that half the people try to sell us things on telemarketing aren’t giving us their real names.”

Hughes said the polling was legitimate use of Parliamentary resources because the results were used to understand what the public was thinking and to formulate policy.

The Labour Party once ran a business called Data Research as a polling company but the Companies Office Register says it was struck off in 1997.

So, lets just get this straight, using parliamentary funds from the leaders office, running a polling company out of parliamentary offices, using false names, using the name of defunct company, denying it all existed then saying the equivalent of  “Oh that polling”. Sounds like straight out fraud to me. Barker and Hughes are both List MP’s they should go immediately. This is simply unconscionable and reprehensible behaviour for those two.

Phil Goff also has failed to front. I think his demise must be imminent, with his mis-handling of the Richard Worth scandal, the non-management of the real leader of the Labour party Trevor “Putin” Mallard, the the ongoing debavle that is Chris Carter, it certainly looks like Goff’s days are numbered as leader.

A spokesman for Goff said the leader of the opposition was not available to answer questions, but he had consulted members of the leadership council and been told the method of polling carried out by Barker was a mistake. “It won’t happen again.”

Bryce Edwards, a politics lecturer at the University of Otago, said that the episode appeared to show a misuse of Parliamentary resources: “I would say that any phone polling at Parliament would fall foul of the rules.”

“This is very clearly partisan political activity, and pretty hard to sell as a legitimate use of Parliamentary resources.”

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff said the details of Barker’s polling operation raised serious questions and could breach the Privacy Act.

And all of the above shows precisely why the parliamentary Services should be immediately opned up and included in the OIA jurisdiction so that rorting and troughing of this most despicable kind can’t happen again.

Goff, Barker and Hughes should go, a new leaser should step up and then they can have the fun of having the tizard effect come into play as well.

Popularity: unranked [?]

TV3 ran a story about veteran trougher and disaster tourist Chris Carter and his extravagant travel arrangements.

As I watched the story it got me thinking. He justifies all his trips with the explanation that he was representing Helen Clark or doing meetings and appearances with NZ’s reputation in mind. He also says he is a “very busy person”.

So, how about the diaries and full itineraries for all these trips are released so that we can judge whether or not the taxpayer did actually get value for money? For example, if I remember rightly, Tau Henare was pilloried in the Bolger/NZFirst government for travel where he did only one meeting per day while Lockwood Smith when he traveled was averaging 8 or 9 meetings a day.

For Chris Carter to say he is “a busy person” we really need to see his diary of meetings for all of those trips just to see if he actually was a busy person or just using the taxpayer to try to save his “marriage”.

The full itinerary would also show if there were any convenient holidays sandwiched in there somewhere on the taxpayers expense.

Transparency of all the details and sunlight are the best disinfectant for the stench of troughing. For me the troughing of MPs must be brought to heal. Fortunately this travel was while Carter was a minister so the information is available under the OIA, ot so for any travel by all MPs though as parliamentary Services remains firmly outside the OIA.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Prior to last years election I looked into Labour’s own secret trust arrangements in particular with regard to the large number of electorate offices they have that are being funded directly from parliamentary services to their direct benefit. I will repost it below.

It is particularly interesting considering the vast amount of time and interest that is being paid to Simon William English, former state tenant of Karori and now also to the Greens. Interesting because of the ways that ALL parties in the parliament appear to structure their affairs to financially benefit/enrich either themselves or individual MPs. Today we will look at how the Labour Party is financially enriching itself at the expense of the taxpayer. It again raises the questions as to why shouldn’t Parliamentary Services be open to the OIA so we as taxpayers can examine the financial interests of parties and MPs that to this day remain hidden.

Labour Party Properties Incorporated (LPP) appears to be an Incorporated Society set up to own Labours substantial property assets. So while they cry poor they in fact have millions of dollars of property.

According to the filed annual accounts they have declared no income and no expenditure for at least the last two years. The LPP also owns the following properties as nominee on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party.

• Lyon Memorial Hall, ANZAC Street, Takapuna
• 7 Fulton Cresent, Otara (CV $230,000)
• 1/332 Massey Road, Mangere (CV $280,000)
• Social Hall, Domain Avenue, Temuka (CV $105,000)
• 4 Regent Road, Dunedin (CV $440,000)
• Fraser Body House, 160 Willis Street, Wellington (CV $630,000)
• 203 Warren Street North, Hastings (CV $255,000)
• 651 Ferry Road, Christchurch (CV $130,000)
• 1 Pharazyn Street, Fielding (CV $380,000)
• 300 Great North Road, Te Atatu (CV $405,000)
• 147 Mt Smart Road, Onehunga, Auckland (CV $470,000)

As 31 August 2007 The records show at 31 August 2007 the liabilities to be in the order of $465,434 for loans/mortgages and $22,248 for leases.The Lease is for the Mt Albert property and the Society also acts as guarantor for the overdraft of the Labour Party.

These assets value at current CV’s at over $3,225,000. I don’t have the CV of some of the takapuna property but  local Commercial Real Estate agents estimates that the value is a minimum of $2 million giving the LPP an asset base of $5,255,000.

This isn’t the full story though because most of those properties are in fact the local parliamentary office of an MP.

Take Fulton Crescent, Otara. That house is half of a duplex state house of the type prevalent in South Auckland. Ironically when Labour bangs on in parliament about National giving state house tenants the ability to buy the state house they live in they have it appears taken advantage themselves of such a scheme. Not only that they have made a pretty penny out of it as well having purchased the property for $58,000. This property is also the office of one Ross Robertson MP.

Similarly 332 Massey Road, Mangere is the Labour Party office that Su’a William Sio works out of. Rick Barker’s office is 203 Warren Street, Hastings, Chris Carter’s is 300 Gt North Road, Henderson.

Now this makes the whole shooting match very intersting indeed. Because as you saw above the Society hasn’t had any income nor has it had any expenses. Yet it owns over $4 million of assets. Those assets are all property and incur at a minimum rates that are charged to the owner of the property which as we know not only from the accounts but also from the Title information I have that LPP owns them. Not only that it appears that a good deal of them are also leased to Parliamentary Services, for what we can only imagine because Parliament protects its own and PS is not subject to OIA requests. So there could be cosy above market lease details that we will never know about. The point is the lease/rents for these properties don’t show up anywhere in the accounts.

As the accounts also show LPP is intricately linked to the Labour Party as currently the properties secure, as at 31 August 2007, the Labour Party Overdraft and another $465,000 of lending as well as a lease of $22,000.

The situation appears even more murky when you add in the details gleaned by Insolent Prick way back in 2006 where Labour also has a selection of private trusts and incorporated societies that receive beneficial tax status, and hold that property on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party.

A selection of Labour’s property assets includes:

• Dannevirke Labour $15,700
• Greymouth Labour Branch $40,000
• NZ Labour Party Clubrooms Inc $140,000
• Picton Branch $11,000
• Thames Branch $83,000
• Dunedin South $770,000

This added to the LPP assets gives a nice tidy asset base of $6,284,700. Remember this is the same Labour Party that took almost three years to pay back the $800k they nicked and also the same Labour Party that cries poor and wants state funding of political parties.

There is certainly more question than answers about LPP and the other secret trusts that Labour operates., but some of the questions that need answering are;

1. Where is the income from the rentals of 12 commercial premises?
2. What is the rent being paid by Parliamentary Services for these properties?
3. How do we know that the rent is market rent?
4. Where are the not inconsiderable expenses of operating 12 commercial properties?
5. What else is Labour hiding?
6. How can an unincorporated society (The Labour Party) legally have an overdraft?
7. Where is the GST expense on the rent received? Surely PS pays GST on the rental?
8. Is the Society actually registered for GST?

I repeat my call for an Independent Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate all political parties and to end defacto state funding of political parties through rorts in Parliamentary Sevices. Another good idea would be to open Parliamentary Services up to inquiry via the Official Information Act.

Popularity: unranked [?]