What great timing

For some months Winston Peters has been asking when TVNZ will be returning to appear before the select committee, to face further questioning over credit card expenditure.

When he got suspended from Parliament for a week on Wednesday, I actually joked to a Government staffer that someone should tell (committee chair) Mark Peck to schedule TVNZ to appear asap.

To my great amusement, I see they appeared yesterday. I am sure this was a coincidence!

In terms of the story itself, I find lines such as “Mr Ralston racked up $21,751 on his credit card in the financial year to June. The spending was in addition to his $299,000 salary.” fairly unhelpful as it suggests that expenditure charged to a credit card is of personal benefit, and I know from experience this is often not the case.

Some credit card expenditure such as entertainment does clearly have some personal benefit, but paying for taxis and airfares is just getting you to a place so you can do your job.