I have no problem with porn. I have no problem with people watching porn. What I do have a problem with is Ministers watching porn and charging it to the taxpayer. Shane Jones was recently exposed as having charged more than 50 pornographic film rentals to his ministerial credit card while staying in hotels. Among a series of other ministerial spending indiscretions, all of which, I admit, annoy me, this particular abuse of taxpayers' money I find unbelievably stupid. Bad enough that Chris Carter was caught buying films and flowers for his partner, or that Mita Ririui was busted treating himself to a set of golf clubs, but for Jones to use taxpayers' funds to buy something as contentious and inappropriate as pornography seems incredibly stupid and shortsighted. Surely he must have known that a) it was a totally unacceptable use of his card; and b) eventually it would come to light. He was quoted in the Herald as saying "I'm not a sex fiend or a sex addict but the reality is that I watched blue movies ... " That is not the problem. I would guess that the majority of the New Zealand public don't care in the slightest whether he gets his rocks off on porn or not, the issue here is that he thought it was OK to use our money, the money he was trusted to use in appropriate situations relating to his job as a Member of Parliament and Building and Construction Minister, to pay for it.
I think the recent revelations of Ministers' abuse of our taxes calls for a new ministerial spending system. Instead of handing them credit cards and asking them to behave like the trustworthy adults they claim to be, we should let them foot their own bills then ask to be reimbursed for costs they can legitimately claim are a result of their ministerial duties. If us regular New Zealand citizens can't be trusted with a credit card until we have proven our sense of responsibility, why should Ministers be different?
I, for one, do not want to be footing someone else's porn bill.
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