Herald on Sunday editorial: Barclay's tour says he is not coming back

Former Clutha-Southland MP Todd Barclay. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Editorial

When a budding political career goes down in flames as Todd Barclay's did, the young ex-politician might find some satisfaction from living it up for what remains of his time on the public payroll.

That appears to be what Barclay has done, posting photos on social media of him and a friend enjoying the splendours of Europe.

He disappeared from Parliament soon after Prime Minister Bill English announced in June Barclay would not be standing at the September election.

He kept his salary, plus a taxpayer-provided car and air travel until the election on September 23 and, like all retired MPs, he continues to be paid a parliamentary salary for three months past polling day.

He is still receiving $3000 a week, before tax, from the public purse. He left New Zealand four days before polling day and over the past two months we have paid him $24,000 while he and a friend have been touring Italy, Croatia and Greece.

He must have known his postcards would become public. If they tell us anything, it is that Barclay is not hoping to return to public life. His fatal mistakes were to record his electorate secretary's conversations in his Clutha-Southland electorate office when he wasn't there, which is illegal, and to "refute" he had done so when asked by reporters.

His grand tour is a reminder that one reason he fell out with his secretary was that she reportedly thought he was spending too much time in Queenstown when he had engagements elsewhere in the large southern electorate.

In June when he resigned, National looked certain to win a fourth term and he was looking at another three years on the back benches. Now National is out of government and its young MPs have a better chance of promotion in the party's ranks over the next three years. Barclay might have been one of them.

So the public should not begrudge him his consolation trip. But it is galling to see how disgraced people can continue drawing a handsome public salary.