A plague on both their houses

Bill English and Phil Goff. Photos / Daily Post, Brett Phibbs

After the pre-caucus comments on ministerial housing this morning by Finance Minister Bill English and Labour leader Phil Goff, all I can say is a Plague on both their Houses.
They are both over-cooking their plight and virtue to ridiculous effect.

English is implying that the only alternative to him getting a hefty taxpayer subsidy to live in his own family home in Wellington is to not live with his children.

"If the answer is to send my children home and spend six days a week in Wellington neglecting my duties as a father then that is not an answer I am willing to contemplate," he told reporters.

"I am not going to allow anyone to require me to send my children away to meet some perception problem."

This is unworthy use of high dramatics that has no ring of reality.

No one has suggested his children should live in Dipton.

He earns $276,700 and his wife works as a GP. My question to English at the standup was something like "aren't you wealthy enough to make decisions about your children with or without the issue of allowances."

The real alternative for English to consider is whether he should be getting a taxpayer subsidy to live in his family home.

Contrary to what John Key said at his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, no one has suggested that English and his family should have moved out of his Wellington home when he became a minister to live in a Crown supplied ministerial house.

Phil Goff did his best to suggest that the rules under National have changed and that Labour minister cost the taxpayer a lot less than the current lot, which is, of course not true.

The annual leases of Labour ministers' taxpayer funded ministerial homes last year has just been released and are totally comparable to the present ones.

Goff admitted that he and other Labour Ministers had been in the same category as Housing Minister Phil Heatley who has accepted a house at taxpayer expense and then rented out his old flat - the only difference being that Heatley has rented his out to an MP and Goff hasn't.

Labour is itching to get into Bill English but can't decide whether to break the convention and not attack personal circumstances.

Instead it is around the gallery suggesting story ideas to the news media that the news media have already been running with.