The English Debacle

Recently Bill English, the Minister of Fianance, has come under fire for the housing allowance claims he has made. Currently, all MPs are entitled to an allowance that covers their cost for living away from home while serving in parliment. This system in itself is silly as MPs are paid quite well to perform this service so an allowance shouldn't be needed anyway but none the less it's there and almost every MP uses it. Ministers of course get more because they are Ministers.

The problem English has is that he has claimed, for many years now, a housing allowance when it seems that he has been living in Wellington. He has a whole bunch of kids that go to school in Wellington, he has a wife who works in Wellington, he has a large house in Wellington and he also works in Wellington. So an intelligent person would think that he isn't really living away from home, right? Well not Bill English. In the worst economic recession the country has seen in a while and as Bill tells the public to start saving he himself is claiming an exorbatant allowance. It hardly seems fair. English enjoys a six figure salary, a nice house and enough money to send all six or seven (or what ever ridiculus number he has) kids to private schools while the average joe gets laid off and is struggling to live on the dole.

The thing that amazes me is that English gets paid upwards of $200.000 a year. What's $30,000 to him? This is a concerning trend in the National party. They always seem to be looking after themselves and worrying about New Zealand later. For example, the first the John Key did once he was elected was raising the salary for all MPs. That's right, in the middle of a massive worldwide economic disaster, he raises the already high salary for MPs.

The government needs to stop worrying about which allowance they are, or aren't, entitled to. They need to do something about the high unemployment and low productivity. The government have many bigger issues to tackle but it seems that lining their own pocket with money is more importanat to them. I guess this is the change that New Zealand wanted. Yeah Right!