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The Dom Post reports that Winston has purchased his repossessed bauble – the former Ministerial self drive car.
Nothing wrong with that of course. Mind you I do wonder who actually paid for it – it may have been the Spencer Trust 
Both Sunday newspapers have picked up on a story that was exclusively broken by Whale Oil, on the fact Winston had not returned his Ministerial self-drive car.
The HoS reports that it finally got picked up on Friday afternoon by Internal Affairs, after being seen being used for shopping in the morning.
The SST has a response from Peters:
“First of all, start off with a fact and not a tissue of lies as well, on your first question,” he told the Sunday Star-Times before adding: “Now don’t be a numbskull. If you want to believe a whole lot of blog sites and Rodney Hide, and every other twit in town, go right ahead. Stop indulging in lies and stop wasting my time.” He then hung up.
I’m not sure what part of the stories Winston claims is incorrect, as it is a fact he still has the Ministerial car (untl Friday) and is no longer a Minister.
Tags: baubles, Whale Oil, Winston FirstI’ve had formal confirmation that Winston Peters is still a Minister of the Crown. He has been stood down from his portfolios, but not as a Minister.
What does this mean?
He has no ministerial work to do, but still has all the baubles of office!
This “standing down” is in fact brilliant for him. He can campaign full-time, using all his Ministerial resources, without having to actually do any Ministerial work. No wonder he agreed.
The NZ Herald front page incorrectly said:
As a minister, Winston Peters enjoys some of what he has previously described as “baubles of office”. His standing down will see him stripped of at least some of these.
- Salary drops from $195,700 as Minister outside Cabinet to $145,900
- Free ministerial house.
- Shiny, new chauffeur-driven BMW ministerial car.
- VIP diplomatic passport.
- All expenses paid international travel.
They got it wrong (to be fair to them they probably assumed a stand down involved some sort of well loss of benefit, and they were up against a deadline). He keeps all of these, but that is not the main thing he keeps.
He keeps his staff. Currently his staff are funded by both Ministerial Services and The Parliamentary Service. But the leader’s office budget from The Parliamentary Service is only $485,920, or including the research funding $639,920. That isn’t a lot. But the Ministerial Office budget tends to be close to or over a million a year. That means Winston will keep all his staff (except those that are portfolio specific), which is very useful in a campaign.
How long will Winston be kept on as a Minister without portfolio?
Winston gives the impression the SFO investigation will be over by Monday.
However the 2002 investigation into a donation to National took two months, or eight weeks, to conclude. Will Helen keep Winston on as Minister without portfolio for eight weeks? That’s a lot of baubles in return for no work.
UPDATE: TVNZ have just made the same mistake and said that “he has been relieved of a large chunk of his pay packet and other Ministerial perks”.
TV3 got it right though. Thank goodness someone did.
Tags: baubles, Helen Clark, Winston First