Ministerial Cellphone Bills

The NZ Herald has done an OIA on ministerial cellphone bills and the top spender is Chris Carter at $12,848 for the year.

Having seen a number of cellphone bills when in Parliament (including my own!) I’ll actually defend Ministers here and say I don’t think the bills are that high, or more to the point that usage is astronomical.

I think on a bulk deal you pay 30 cents a minute. So $12,000 is around 40,000 minutes which is around 110 minutes a day.

When travelling to and from events you often spend almost every spare second returning calls, talking to staff, to media, to constituents etc. You actually often spend more time on your cellphone than your landline.

Also even when in the building, you are often not at your desk. You are talking to colleagues, in the press gallery etc etc.

So overall, while reasonably high, I don’t see any of the costs listed as extravagant. In fact I’m amazed one Minister was as low as $1,100. Take off $360 line charges and you have only around 5 minutes a day of calls.