John Roughan: Crucified under mob rule

The Easter story is about politics. At the fateful moment a decision-maker deferred to democracy.

What should the governor have done when the crowd was baying for blood? Acted on his own judgment or the majority will? It goes without saying in the biblical account that the mob was wrong and the governor weak, but most political commentators would have taken a different view.

They would have pronounced him sensible, even "astute", to have sensed the weight of public opinion. There is no room for courage in their measure of leadership. Courage would imply the public opinion was wrong and that commentary could make that judgment.

Yet often these days political commentary is the public opinion. Crowds don't assemble any more to bay for blood or anything else. They don't go to public meetings where they might hear decisions explained by those who make them and offer a range of raw responses.

They receive an edited version and suppose the tone of it expresses the general sentiment. The media these days is the mob.

A month or so ago it was baying about parliamentarians' expenses again. It is not long since Parliament agreed to a regular disclosure. This one threw up a couple of questionable expenses claimed by cabinet ministers.

One of them involved a heavyweight, Gerry Brownlee, who batted the issue away with ease. The other concerned a junior minister, Phil Heatley, who became a quivering wreck.

Heatley had bought two bottles of wine at last year's National Party conference dinner and charged them to the credit card that ministers are given for incidental expenses.

John Key, anticipating the clamour of the mob, ordered a full investigation by the Audit Office. Heatley took fright because his purchase had been listed on his expense claim as food as well as beverage.

He thought he should resign. Key told him that was going a bit far. Heatley was insistent. The next day he issued a mortified statement of resignation and held a press conference at which he flagellated himself and agreed it would be a long time before he could hope for redemption.

He looked to me like someone who might be out of his depth as Minister of Housing and Fisheries and seemed relieved to be MP for Whangarei again. But it clearly didn't look that way to the assembled commentators.

They didn't find it all strange that a minister should resign over $70 of wine. In fact they worked themselves into a righteous state of outrage at Heatley's mis-spending and darkly hinted that the wine was not the worst of it.

This week the Auditor General issued her findings. Lynn Provost's office has found a few other things. During Heatley's 15 months as a minister he took his family with him on official business, twice to Auckland, once to Queenstown and once to Picton and Kaikoura. Total extra cost to the taxpayer: $538.

A couple of times he used his MP's expenses for the air, rail or ferry fares for a child accompanying him. Total: $794.

Eight times over those 15 months his wife accompanied him on ministerial business. On four of those she did not actually attend the official engagement and the Auditor General rules those expenses improper.

Balancing them, there was a fisheries trip to the Chathams where Mrs Heatley did attend the ministerial function and Heatley decided he should pay her way. The Auditor General finds he need not have done so.

Overall the report concludes his mistakes were honest and the rules unclear. This has been a ridiculous exercise about next to nothing. The Audit Office has examined 173 items of expenditure, amounting to $107,566, and found a grand total of $1402 mistakenly charged to the taxpayer.

It notes that Heatley was the fifth lowest spending minister of his time in office. The report is padded with references to the "sensitivity" of the subject, "perceived" problems, and how, "mistakes involving small amounts can have major consequences".

Heatley is returning to the cabinet but the mob is not all chastened by his resurrection. The report is deemed unduly kind.

Meanwhile the cost of the investigation is unknown. There is another report to come when the Auditor General attempts to clarify the rules. Anyone would think our politics were infested with rorts and corruption.

Politicians in this country are modestly paid and their perks, apart from lifetime international air travel, reasonable. The pay rates are far below the top rungs of the public service let alone the private sector, and they leave office with little besides their savings. Next door in New South Wales the state governor receives on retirement a tax-paid office and personal assistant, car and driver, for life.

Political leaders here should have the courage to remind the mob of home truths and spare us repeats of the Easter story.