Transparency in spending

One of the better things John Key has done is to introduce transparency to ministerial spending. Previously you never knew how much each Minister spent, or what it was on. And even more than that, their detailed credit card expenses are now put online.

This allows us to track spending. Now while Labour never released their spending, DIA did provide this for comparision purposes for the first six months of 2008, so we can compare that to the last six months of this Government:

• Out of Wellington accom down 40% from $78k to $46k
• Domestic Air Travel down 17% from $559k to $466k
• Domestic Surface Travel down 10% from $1,589k to $1,428k
• International Travel up 1% from $1,199k to $1,211k

Wellington accom expenses not included as impossible to compare apples with apples, as houses owned by Min Servs are not shown as an expense.