Perk-buster's blunder opened the cab door to free riders

By EUGENE BINGHAM political reporter

Perk-buster Rodney Hide last night admitted having lost a book of taxpayer-funded MPs' taxi chits that were then fraudulently used around Auckland.

But when the Act MP realised he had been careless, he personally reimbursed the Parliamentary Service $550 for the free rides clocked up around the city.

Mr Hide's embarrassing mistake more than two years ago emerged in Parliament when New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said an MP had left his taxi chits behind at a restaurant whose staff then enjoyed free travel for a month.

Mr Peters made the allegation during a heated exchange with Act leader Richard Prebble, who was trying to read from an Australian newspaper article referring to Mr Peters being out at a Wellington restaurant at 2 am.

Jumping to his feet, Mr Peters fired a shot across Mr Prebble's bow, saying he would expose an Act MP over misuse of taxi chits.

"Perhaps Mr Prebble could tell us who that was because he knows better than anybody else," said Mr Peters.

"If we are to get into that sort of thing, let's go."

Outside Parliament, a spokesman for Mr Prebble said he did not know what Mr Peters was talking about.

But later, Mr Hide admitted it was him, although he denied losing the chits in a restaurant.

He thought they might have fallen on the ground after a taxi ride one afternoon.

Mr Hide reported the book of about 50 chits missing to the Parliamentary Service in October 1998, but was told there was nothing that could be done to cancel them.

Over the next year, the chits were used up by people who scribbled their signatures so their names could not be recognised.

"The police were told but there was no way to stop them and you couldn't blame the poor taxi drivers. The only thing was for me to take responsibility."

He paid a total of $544.20. Since then, Act MPs have switched to chits which have their names on them.

Mr Hide called for other MPs, including Mr Peters, to switch to the new system to prevent any further abuse of the taxi chits.

His scrape comes three years after he made public the $29,000 taxi bill clocked up by long-serving Labour MP Jonathan Hunt.