New Zealand First MP Ron Mark has launched a fresh attack on Army chief Maurice Dodson - releasing information about the golf he plays on defence trips overseas.
Mr Mark tabled itineraries in Parliament this week showing that Major-General Dodson spent six days of one 13-day Asian defence trip playing golf and fitted golf into nine of 15 trips.
Defence Minister Mark Burton said yesterday that he had asked defence chiefs to submit their itineraries for all overseas trips in future.
He was also seeking advice on ensuring that travel arrangements for senior defence staff were "consistent with generally accepted public service standards."
Late last year, Mr Mark, a former major, attacked General Dodson for spending 150 days overseas, at a cost of more than $100,000, since becoming Chief of General Staff in April 1998.
General Dodson's wife accompanied him on six trips - at a cost of just under $30,000.
Mr Mark used parliamentary privilege at the time to accuse the general of "globetrotting" and spending "a lot of time golfing around the world."
It was also revealed that the Chief of Defence Force, Air Marshal Carey Adamson, went on trips costing $50,000. His wife also went on some of them.
Air Marshall Adamson dismissed Mr Mark's implication at the time that the trips were a "perk."
He said all travel by Service chiefs and their spouses was approved by the Government.
This week, Mr Burton said he was changing the way defence travel spending was approved.
But Mr Mark said this was not enough. "On one of these trips [it was] four days overseas, two days playing golf," he told Parliament.
"This would be laughable and a joke if it weren't for the fact that this Government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hugely important defence decisions.
"Two years after my calling for the poverty in the Defence Force to be addressed for the junior ranks, we are still waiting for a pay increase."
Mr Burton said he would look carefully at the itineraries of senior defence staff in the future.
"The long-standing practice that was in place when I became minister was for the Minister of Defence to receive advice on the purpose and duration [only] of proposed travel by senior defence staff."
- NZPA
General ends up in rough over golf trips
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