Hide: "I will do anything for love, but I won't pay my girlfriends fare"

Rodney and Louise's other holiday perk
"Perk-buster" Rodney Hide whisked his girlfriend away on another tax-payer funded trip - a mid-winter tropical break in Hawaii. The Weekend Herald can reveal that the Act leader - under intense scrutiny after taking Louise Crome on a ministerial trip to Europe and America in September - also took her on a $10,000 holiday to Hawaii in July. This week, Mr Hide quietly repaid the money without publicly revealing anything about the holiday.

Rodney Hide, Perk Bluster? He just can't help himself can he? He took her to Hawaii for god's sake - what political function required that? Weddings, Theme parks, plush hotels, tropical resorts - are you fucking kidding me? Does he want to do a Cabinet meeting at Disneyland?

Look Rodney, you need a new line of attack mate, you're a joke looking for a punchline right now. Instead of 'Perk Buster', Rodney should be the 'Perk Defender'. Argue that it's right to give MPs these Perks, think about it, do we really want our sexually repressed frat team that is the Government Front bench roaming overseas without the tight leash of their partners to keep them in line at the after function cocktail party? Otherwise we'll have photos on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald of Bill English topless on a bar table someplace in Phuket for the OECD Finance Ministers conference.

Better we the humble taxpayer pay for Rodney's co-dependency issues and subsidize his girlfriend's global travel and Hawaiian holidays, or else he won't be able to concentrate on his mass privatization of NZ post 2011 plans.