Finance Minister Bill English went into damage control mode this week after it emerged he was receiving $920 a week for being a boarder in a million-dollar home in Wellington.
A boarder in a million-dollar home that is owned by his wife, who is also his landlord, and which is
also home to the couple's six kids.
"I understand that this does not look good," he said.
Damn right it doesn't.
He may be legally entitled to receive the money under the system the MPs set up for themselves back in the days when MPs were getting the same salary as cops and nurses and teachers.
But times have changed.
Thanks to the Remuneration Authority pushing MPs' pay up higher and higher, a lowly back-bench MP now earns twice the salary of a nurse and much more than teachers and police officers.
Senior ministers earn considerably more than that.
English knows that we know he will have absolutely no moral authority to thunder from the pulpit about restraint and belt-tightening in times of economic recession when he's got the biggest snout of all the political porkers.
And to have so recently called for the public service to deliver better services for the same or fewer resources and to have boasted that he'd sent a clear message of restraint to both ministers and public sector CEOs is gobsmacking hypocrisy.
To be fair, MPs of every hue have been finessing the system for years and credit should go to the Nats for pulling back the curtains. And Bill English is a good guy.
It just goes to show what can happen to a person's moral compass when they become institutionalised.
Clearly that feeling of entitlement is as communicable a disease as measles.
Roger Douglas and English have become the whipping boys for the public, many of whom are hurting because of the recession.
And although there could have been many other candidates to be bent across the table, it doesn't mean these two deserve a sound thrashing any the less.
* www.kerrewoodham.com
