Progressives going going gone

NZPA reported:

The Progressive Party is effectively standing aside at the next election and its members have been told they are free to join Labour if they want to.

Back on May 31 I blogged that the Progressives appear to be defunct, and it looks like we were right.

The “convenient fiction” that they are still a party gets Anderton an extra $100,000 a year in taxpayer resources for his office. His total parliamentary funding is $250,580 + GST.

Anderton personally gets paid an extra $13,500 salary for his fictional role as a party leader.

A spokesman told NZPA the Progressive Party would not run a candidate list at the 2011 election and would not campaign for the party vote.

I expect Anderton will announce his retirement in due course.