$250 an hour

Labour are trying to make out that paying $250 an hour to a former Treasury Secretary is “appalling”.

What world do they live in? Have they ever hired a lawyer? A junior to intermediate lawyer costs $250 an hour. Partners are around $400 and hour and the top partenrs and QCs are up at $600 to $900 an hour.

And we are talking about a former Secretary of the Treasury. Someone like that would normally be costing well over $500 an hour. This is a man who has risen to the very top of his profession, and he is only charging the Government the same rate as a mid level lawyer does.

Also Labour miss the big picture – all focused on inputs. For the $45,000 maximum Graham Scott was paid, the question that should be asked is how much money he has saved? Okay to be fair to Labour they are against the Government actually being more efficient and saving money – but those of us who pay taxes generally do like such things.

I would be amazed if Scott has not identified savings of at least $4.5 million. It may in fact be ten times that. So the return on his $45,000 is somewhere between 100:1 and 1000:1.

And Labour are campaigning against this.