Even if he signed up 500 financial members (one of the requirements to have a party registered with the Electoral Commission) his party would still not be recognised by Parliament, so he’d get no additional Parliamentary funding (Leader’s and Whip’s Budgets etc) than he does as an independent MP.

It was only when Hone Harawira won his seat as a Mana Party candidate (in a byelection) that his party became recognised as a Parliamentary party and therefore eligible for Parliamentary funding.

That would mean finding a sufficient number of people prepared to become party members to support a rort for him to have party leadership status and funding while in parliament.

I suspect it would be easier for him to prostitute himself before John Key and offer his vote in return for membership in the National Party caucus and a cosy place on the National Party list.

It is not as if there is no precedent for former members of NZ First to do this. And Winston himself did this in 1996 when campaigning against the government and then supporting its continuance in office – in all but the technical detail. And it is not as if John Key is opposed to another National admin getting a third term it would not otherwise have got without Winston’s help. And, as last time, expect another National MP to then roll the PM and get a turn as PM because one dirty deed precedes another.

If they can question my expenditure of ~$30 how can they justify not calling Horan to account for travel worth many hundreds, if not thousands, more?

To answer my own question: because MPs are great believers in the maxim that “some are more equal than others” and that the rules which apply to virtually any other employee – including those working for Parliamentary Services – should not apply to them in respect of their employers, the NZ taxpayer.

On reflection, if the blatant troughing of Horan – which makes Tuku’s underpants look like utter penury – serves to make the public demand reform, then the expense of preserving him for a year as a constant, recurring symbol of all that is rotten in our democracy is a small price to pay.

give up now or i start shooting

Your load?

Curious that party of yours…..

farrar, why do we have to fight you , we do not ask for much , you already know what our leader wants, give up now or i start shooting

Strewth!

Pq: are you on a substance or is that how you normally write? Either way, get some help old chap…

Horan becoming the leader of a one man party consisting of himself would be a totally unvarnished rort. but a legal one.

Add to that, none of his former colleagues will talk to him or be seen with him. Depending on how things go, the Nat whips might hold their noses and talk to him if they need his vote on some issue, but it will be obvious they feel they are talking to a leper, and they won’t want to be near him once they have got what they want from him….

Rex: I agree with most of what you have said. And being at the races when you have said you were somewhere else entirely is neither parliamentary nor party business…and a lie, which as you know, is fatal.

That he can enter Parliament with just a handful of votes, shamelessly use the money earned by other NZers to fund his lifestyle, and then remain at the teat when the magic carpet on which he rode in is swept from under his feet shows how badly served we are by MMP.

And I’d argue there’s a difference between stretching “Parliamentary business” to encompass “political party business” – because the two are often intertwined and, like it or not, political parties are a necessity to democracy. An individual MP’s gambling is not.

It would be easy to tighten up these abuses. Expecting an MP to justify – even by way of random audit – their taxpayer-funded travel by producing evidence of having undertaken legitimate business is hardly beyond the scope of Parliamentary Services. All it would take is for MPs to permit themselves to be placed under such scrutiny.