King John says “Let them eat cake”

MPs cut everything in public service except own spending
Politicians have escaped the "razor gang" that is cutting Government spending. Now the Treasury has suggested freezing the amount of money available to ministers in order to force them to lead by example. The results of "line-by-line" reviews of departmental expenditure were released among Budget documents yesterday. They reveal that the departments that look after the politicians - Ministerial Services, the Parliamentary Service and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet - emerged largely unscathed from the Government's cost-cutting demands. However, the Treasury had a pointed message for the new National Party ministers. It said they were "accentuating" the problem with a travel bill of $739,000 in their first three months - more than double the $336,000 Labour ministers spent on travel in the same period the year before. The Treasury was disappointed at savings of just $136,000 in Ministerial Services - just 0.02 per cent of the agency's total spending.

A 1000 NZers joining the dole every week, 10% knee capping of the public sector labour force and every department told to cut back EXCEPT THEIR OWN. The message from our multi millionaire Prime Minister is pretty clear isn’t it, “You cut back, but I won’t”. Does he really get how tough it is for NZers because blowing twice as much as Labour did for air travel and making only a .02% saving for his department doesn’t really look like he does. In the wake of the farce that was the job summit, the least he could do is make cut backs ijn his own department that he is demanding from everyone else, but King John won't.

Because King John is a winner and winners don't cut back. Keep it up King John, NZers love this sort of thing.