Impertinent media are now poking into Paul’s Parliamentary perks and politicking

If the taxpayers didn’t want us to slurp from the trough, they would stop filling it.

Alf observes that a party bench-mate, Paul Foster-Bell, has been a quick learner of how to slurp from the Parliamentary expenses trough.

At first he seemed unaware of how far a fellow can go when travelling at the expense of the taxpayer.

But he has quickly learned how to making the most of it.

This is all to clear from a record of his expenses published today at Stuff, which gives him no credit for keeping his expenses so low in the second quarter of 2013.

Data published by the newspaper show his claims record has been:

Declaring expenses is admirable (in principle)

Gotta say Alf is a tad perplexed by Greenie Russel Norman and Act’s John Boscowen.

The buggers have broken ranks with the rest of us in Parliament during the heat of the Mt Albert by-election battle and disclosed their Parliamentary expenses.

News media and the public at large will be apt to applaud this gesture, thereby encouraging a bloody avalanche of disclosures.

Three cheers, then for our candidate, Melissa Lee, who has refused to reveal what she spends her $14,800 annual expenses top-up on, and how much she claims for accommodation in Wellington, and on taxis, rental cars and airfares.

As the Herald on Sunday reports, if she was to disclose her expenses, it would put pressure on other National MPs to do the same.