Rodney Hide would have been better taking time to prune MPs expenses rather than speaking to the ironically named Citizen Advocacy Tauranga (CAT) meeting last week.
It's difficult to take him seriously when despite being the Perkbuster, he still takes the perks!
CAT has an uncanny connection to ACT - for a start the letters are the same, just a little rearranged! And ACT brochures were handed out at the meeting.
Perhaps they are really CATARACT because both groups seem to be about as blind to any idea of community good. No surprise that Mark Groos (of the TECT election don't fund community groups brigade) was involved.
The presence of Sir Roger Douglas was a further CATastrophic insult to the taxpayer, let alone ratepayer. It would interesting to add up his MP salary/expenses, his gold-plated super scheme from the last time, and his $44,000 overseas travel bill this year.
With that amount of snout in the public trough, is Sir Roger the biggest bludger in Parliament? Well at least there were a few free copies of his book floating around.
I initially misread the title 'No Second Class Citizens” as 'No Second Class Fares,” which was probably more accurate in light of his penchant for funded flights.
Thomas Brown, Tauranga.