John Armstrong: Age of Austerity? We're still spending on plastic

So much for Bill English's much-heralded Age of Austerity. The close to $2 million in taxpayers' money for Auckland's "plastic waka" suggests the Old Age of Waste is still with us.

National is certainly consistent when it comes to cutting spending. It consistently fails to practise what it preaches - be it the purchase of replacement chauffeur-driven BMWs for Cabinet ministers or this latest exercise in excess.

If anything falls within the Finance Minister's definition of a "nice to have" that can be lost then surely it is the waka on the waterfront.

You do not have to look far for more pressing demands. What about legal aid for the company that owns the Pike River mine so it has no excuse for not fronting up at inquiries?

The Government's priorities seem to extend no further than supplying an over-priced drinking venue for rugby fans in an area where there is no shortage of drinking venues.

As for the Maori dimension, the politics are as transparent as the emperor's new clothes. This is a sop to the Maori Party - cheap for the Government, expensive for the taxpayer. It is the sort of self-indulgence you might expect from a Government enjoying a $16 billion Budget surplus - not one expecting such a deficit.

The waka, we are assured, will be "world class" and "showcase New Zealand". We are only fooling ourselves if we believe that claptrap. Its economic value is zilch. It will not draw one extra rugby fan from overseas simply because it will not be finished within sufficient time to do so.

Some might argue the cash for the waka is no worse than the $33 million in government money for Team NZ. Indeed. English yesterday revealed he had wanted to withdraw that funding but the contracts negotiated during Labour's tenure were watertight. So canoes are okay but yachts are not?

There might be some defence if the waka was being retained after the World Cup. But ownership will revert to Ngati Whatua seemingly because the Government cannot be bothered to look after it. The plastic waka will sink faster than the Titanic in National's heartland.

The foreshore and seabed argument may have been impossibly complex to comprehend - this is easy.

Above all, the funding of the waka is nothing short of an abdication of fiscal responsibility on National's part.