MP going easy on travel

Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott claimed just $5917 in travel and accommodation costs for the three months ending September.

Geography, efficiency and Scottish ancestry are the reasons given by Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott for his place as the cheapest New Zealand MP for travel and accommodation.

Mr Scott claimed just $5917 of travel and accommodation costs for the three months to the end of September, whereas the biggest spending MP, Todd Barclay of Clutha-Southland, topped the billing at $28,448 in a list released by Parliamentary Services last week.

Mr Scott's first reply when asked the reason for his low list placing was "caring how I spend the taxpayers' money", before citing "a range of reasons".

Those who live the furthest away tended to spend more, Mr Scott said.

"I don't need to fly to get to my electorate [from Wellington]. Even if I've got to go to Waipukurau I don't fly to Napier and drive down."

Mr Scott said he is "essentially Wellington-based" and those MPs tended to spend the least on travel.

Mr Scott also said he thinks he is "pretty efficient in the way I use my travel" - not driving to the far end of the electorate to see one constituent or to stay for several days, for example.

Finally Mr Scott gave a natural tendency as the reason for his low expense account.

"I'll walk places where others might take a taxi," he said.

"I'm pretty miserable with money - my ancestry is Scottish."

Maori Party co-leader and list MP Marama Fox - also of Wairarapa - was Parliament's third highest-spending traveller - excluding ministers - at $28,006, behind Mr Barclay and Labour's Kelvin Davis.

Mrs Fox said she was not surprised to see herself scoring highly on travel expenses.

"I'm surprised I wasn't at the top of the list."

Though a list MP, she said, "I respond to [electorate] Ikaroa-Rawhiti, which runs 780km from Potaka [near East Cape] in the north to Wainuiomata in the south."

MARAMA FOX: "I judge a motel by how comfortable the bed is, not by how nice it looks."

Mrs Fox also responds to issues affecting Maori in general, which sees her travelling all over New Zealand including Kaitaia, Whangarei, Auckland and the South Island.

"The last time I was in Kaitaia I was receiving a petition ... for banning smoking in cars with children."

One day of travel saw her "wake up in the Chatham Islands" and pass through Christchurch and Wellington on the way to Auckland, "and then Kaitaia in the morning".

Mrs Fox said some people tease her for "swanning about the place travelling".

"There's nothing swanning about it ... I judge a motel by how comfortable the bed is, not by how nice it looks."

Mrs Fox said she has been known to sleep on her office couch.

While she has a place in Wellington, one night she just wanted to get back "home" to Masterton and it took five hours, including three stops to nap on the side of the road.

"You need to remember in a party of two, we represent Maori," Mrs Fox said.

"To do that I need to meet groups of people, who want to see and hear you face to face."