I read this article in one of the daily papers a few days ago and felt compelled to put my thoughts (aka irritation) on paper.
The title and story read as:
MINISTER PUT PORN FILMS ON EXPENSES
Ministers in New Zealand used official credit cards to buy porn movies, champagne, flowers for a partner and an aeroplane charter, it emerged today. After official details of the 2003-2008 expenses were published, former housing minister Shane Jones admitted paying for the films, saying: “I’m a red-blooded adult.”
Now, as you are probably aware, we here in the UK have had our own share of Ministers expenses being abused. Duck-houses being one of the most ridiculous! And many of the Ministers have ‘apologised’ for their mis-demeanors and in some instances have paid back some of the funds they ripped off. Call a spade a spade, they abused their expense claims and getting caught out was just an inconvenience. I have no doubt if it was not brought to the attention of the powers that be and the public, whose taxes pay for all this, they would not have paid anything back and would most likely have continued to do what they had ‘accidently’ been doing for years. Fortunately this has now come to an abrupt end and their expenses are more closely monitored.
Coming back to the article in the paper, I have no quarrel with a ‘red-blooded’ males buying porn movies if thats what it takes to make him happy, and good luck to them. What I do take total exception to is the fact that as a Minister he blatently used public funds to accommodate his own personal tastes and thinks that being a ‘red-blooded’ is justification, and seems to be amazed at the fact this was questioned!
How about if the ministers of our various Governments who are voted into these positions of trust, remember that they are meant to be working for the good of their constituencies and not using the position to rip the public off, thereby satisfying their greed. By all means claim for legitimate expenses, but for ‘porn movies’, under no circumstances is that acceptable or excusable.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
Not Just a Granny 
This has been THE news story down here for the past couple of days and the three bad boys have now been demoted and sent to the back benches. But nowhere has there been any discussion of how the problem is going to be fixed.
In fairness to the guys involved they had already paid back the amounts before the story broke–apparently the policy is that you shouldn’t use your ministerial card for personal expenses but if you do you are supposed to repay the amounts. But they do send a message of arrogance and sense of priviledge when they do things like that, don’t they?
Oh really. I was not sure how old the story was, but boy was I annoyed. They have a real cheek.
btw, just read your blog (albeit over 2 months old) on the cow story…hysterically LOL