FFS…
PM Jacinda Ardern and deputy PM Winston Peters overpaid by $21k
An administration error has seen the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister receive accommodation payments they weren’t entitled to.
In a statement this afternoon a spokesperson for the deputy prime minister’s office revealed the payments to Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters were received in error but had since been paid back.
“As soon as we were advised of the error, we both immediately took steps to reimburse the money.
“That has now happened,” said the prime minister and deputy prime minister.
…Public Service Sadists have managed to humiliate the PM and her Deputy. When they do this to poor people, the Public Service Sadists scream welfare fraud, when they do it to the Prime Minister and Deputy, it’s just humiliation they dish out.
Luckily neither Jacinda or Winston are shy of a bob or two and they can pay it back, but for the poor who get overpaid, the Public Service Sadists destroy those lives with the kind of glee that makes 50 Shades of Grey look G rated.
Nothing forces politicians to give up on demanding culture change in the Ministries quite like public humiliation.
At some stage this new Government have to start seeing the Public Service as a bigger enemy than the National Party.
Make every department compose and sign a report, “how we serve NZers” and use that to fire and yank out the neoliberal rivets.
Public service is everything else but “public” so the Minister for broadcasting (Clare Curran) ‘once again’ is being seen as asleep at the wheel and is herself hurting her own Government.
I must’ve missed something. How is Clare Curran ‘once again’ being asleep at the wheel in this case?
Permanent hypnosis !!!!!!!!!!!!!
The MSM headlines here are misleading, due to incompetence or mischief-making, or both. Maybe just dumb.
This is on a par with WINZ stuffing up Winston Peters’ Super payments – the way they do botch people’s payments- with media and National Party politicians then idiotic enough to think that they could make Peters look a crook, but instead made themselves look the dimwits they indisputably are.
yes Morning Report RNZ Guy Espiner seems very keen to make Winston Peters look like a crook…he never misses a chance to dish the dirt on Peters or get someone else to do so and gives them massive air time without challenging them …imo Espiner is compromised
I can imagine both Peters and Ardern are both so busy they dont have time to regularly check their bank accounts ( neither of them are crooks as some would like to make out)
….if you cant trust the Public Service to get it right …then the Public Service is not doing their job properly and heads should roll….otherwise it looks like a setup to undermine.
So the question must be asked. Who else has received an Accommodation Supplement overpayment or payments theyre not entitled to?
Quite right TAKERE one upstanding god fearing recent prime minister immediately springs to mind
Now now. Didn’t the upstanding god-fearing recent PM pay it back when he got found out, because he said it “wasn’t a good look” ?
Did he ring Duncan Garner and use very rude words to him on the telephone ?
And anyone who thinks that Ardern and Peters sit down and peruse their bank statements the way we lesser mortals do needs a reality check.
English and his admitting sins on a Sunday means it was not ok that he received the money that was not his to take.
But i bet if he could have got away with it he would have taken the cash as if he should be entitled to it.
After all that’s what the National party stands for.
Bit of a long bow there – DIA Ministerial Services are quite a different kettle of fish to the WINZ crew.
Totally different ethos – where WINZ’s default option is less, Ministerial Service’s default is more.
If this was a true error – someone was sloppy.
They’ve done this twice now. A third time will begin to raise questions that the public service is incompetent.
Someone will be asked to tender their resignation if there’s a repeat of this kind of “mistake”.
Yes Frank, it was a true and honest mistake. I know many of these people and it wouldn’t be due to vindictivness or trying to humiliate anyone. Yes, sloppy. And yes…they won’t do that again I’d say. Also, the level of public servants doing the actual work are not the High Priests of the Public Service; they’ll actually be regular folks who will be privately horrified.
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