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From a Radio NZ report,
The Royal visit cost several hundred thousand dollars more than the Government originally said it did.
The Duke and Duchess visited eight centres, and the Department of Internal Affairs said that cost taxpayers just over $1 million.
But that figure did not take into account the costs for other government departments, such as police, Defence, Tourism New Zealand and Customs. With those costs included, the ten-day visit cost about $1.7 million.
The group New Zealand Republic said it expects the final bill to climb further, to more than $2 million.
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My views on this…
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FROM: "f.macskasy" SUBJECT: Letter to the Editor DATE: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 14:28:01 +1200 TO: "The Dominion Post" <letters@dompost.co.nz>.
The editor DOMINION POST . Sir/madam, A recent Radio NZ report stated that the recent Royal Visit cost cost-payers $1.7 million - with the final bill from other government departments pushing the final amount well over $2 million. This is money that could have been invested in alleviating child poverty, buying extra hip-operations, or cleaning up this country's many spoiled, polluted water-ways. Considering that Dear Leader John Key maximised publicity opportunities for the National Party, by inserting himself in as many photo-ops as possible, perhaps the $2 million could be deducted from National's tax-payer funded allocation for political parties' TV and radio advertising? That might balance out the ledger somewhat. Children living in poverty and elderly needing hip-replacement operations would be very appreciative. After all, National does believe in user pays, does it not? -Frank Macskasy[address & phone number supplied].
Or maybe there’s nothing to this?
After all, how many photo-ops could Dear Leader possibly insert himself into…?
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References
Radio NZ: Royal visit a $68m advert for tourism
NZ Herald: Advertising funding down for Nats, Labour; up for Greens, NZ First
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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes
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= fs =
I don’t think anyway is going to vote for John Key on September 20th because of a few royal photos many months beforehand.
I do however strongly object to the NZ taxpayer footing the bill for Wills and Kate to do a tour over here. There is a dubious “tourism benefit” but I struggle to see any additional Brits coming over here from what is a market with a lot of knowledge around what NZ offers.
If Wills and Kate wish to visit their subjects it should have been the British paying, not us.
“Who is that ‘unidentified guest’ in those pics with the royals?” Oh yes, that’s right it’s the clown aka NZ’s PM! Cringe!!!
When Key is kicked out of office in September, he can add these pics to his CV, to take with him when he auditions for the job of a circus clown, somewhere in his beloved country, the USA!
If New Zealand ever became a republic with a ceremonial president like the system in the Irish Republic, John Key would be the perfect president. He can go to all the ceremonies, get all the photo ops he wants, smile, wave and smarm to the media, talk frivolous warm fuzzies – and keep out of real government. Hey wait on! that’s what he does now!
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