I remember John Banks on talkback radio in the 1990s discussing this and that and one thing he continually stressed and I cant remember why, was the cost of running Parliament.
He actually had it down to the cost per minute which for some reason has stuck firmly in my mind.
The price per minute was NZ$7500.00 and at the time I remember thinking that is *$%&%* expensive!
Funny that but my elephant like memory has come in useful for this piece.
Some of you may know that Parliament is debating changes to Auckland local body council legislation (even as I write this on a Saturday they are - listen here) and in those debates the discussion is often passionate, reasoned and related to the legislation at hand.
Opposition is allowed to what is called filibuster, basically waste time trying to add amendments to the legislation under debate.
What is different this time though is that the time wasting has reached historically lengthy proportions.
Labour have filibustered to the point where thousands of joke amendments have been put to the vote and to slow those joke votes down even further they have been cast in Maori by Labour Party members. These votes then have to be translated.
The New Zealand public are used to Labour wasting money, over the last 9 years billions of our dollars have evaporated into thin air.
This is different though, it is the working of parliament, the very centre of our democracy and it is being abused and slowed down by individuals who have no countenance to its cost to you and me.
The total waste by Labour just yesterday at $7500 a minute was $6.7 million and this is just one day of cost!
It would be nice to see this sort of detail in mainstream media lest the hoards are misled by braindead headlines but there you go, you are welcome.
Footnote: Labour's 4 day delay cost taxpayers a minimum of $26 million.
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