PAUL TAGGART
Maybe it is the rarefied air in Wellington, or the constant mixing with well-heeled folk in fancy restaurants while charging their meals to the taxpayer.
There could be another explanation, but there can be no doubt that something very odd happens to our Members of Parliament when they board their flights for the Capital. It involves prodigious waste of our money.
This week's example of outrageous squandering of taxpayers' money is the proposal confirmed by Hawke's Bay's own Rick Barker that Cabinet has chosen a high-level design concept for the construction of a new permanent Wellington home for the Supreme Court.
There is only one thing "high-level design concept" can mean - very, very expensive.
The scrapping of New Zealanders' right to appeal to the Privy Council and the creation of New Zealand's Supreme Court was controversial.
It was about appealing to national pride, without there being a demonstrable need to change the legal system.
Once the court had been brought into existence, offices were needed. No problem with that. But top-rank civil servants threatened to reject the proposed Supreme Court premises, objecting to many aspects of its design. Points that made the judges unhappy included where the toilets were planned, room size and staircase placement.
Changes they sought included the spending of $486,000 for a private outdoor space for judges and their visitors, an extra $180,000 for administrative staff for Chief Justice Sian Elias, $677,000 for chambers for a possible seventh judge and $751,000 to accommodate clerks next to judges.
In 2002 a ministerial advisory group proposed housing the new Supreme Court in the former High Court after an $11 million overhaul.
The following year, the cost of refurbishment was put close to $22 million. Now, although Mr Barker won't tell us how much of our money he plans to spend on the project, the revised stand-alone building could cost in the region of $45 million.
How on earth can such a sum be justified?
The idea of a Supreme Court was sold to the public of New Zealand with the line that it would be a cheaper option for those seeking justice.
But what about the cost to taxpayers? And the $45 million just covers the bricks and mortar, without even considering the salaries of the new tier of judges and their many staff.
The cost is obscene and the judges' demands for luxurious appointments, and our representatives' pandering to their wishes and unwillingness to say how much the final figure is likely to be, are an affront to ordinary tax-paying Kiwis.
EDITORIAL: Too much padding on bench
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.