The fourth annual Taxpayers’ Union Annual Jonesy Awards for 2021 were announced at the Beehive last week.
Below is a BFD transcription of Mike Hosking’s comments on Newstalk ZB on Monday 8 November at 7:45 am 3.4 minutes in.
Transcript:
I noticed over the weekend, to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever, that the Taxpayers Union handed out their annual Jonesy Waste Award. These are the people who spend our money and waste it.
Now, I would have thought that’s an interesting read over the weekend and if I had been running a newspaper, a digital service, tv or radio channel I’d have stuck it on there.
But the first thing I could do is get back here this morning and bring it to your attention.
So, these are the awards for people going around spending money they just don’t have, and wasn’t theirs in the first place anyway.
Auckland City Council, I note, won an award for their innovative dots and road blocks. These are good to have because they remind you of the idiocy in this country that you’ve probably forgotten about. Auckland City Council $100,000 spent painting dots and patterns in Takapuna. $41,000 spent blocking a road with plywood crates.
Hamilton City Council won an award too while planning an 8.9% rate hike. Council hired a play advocate who talked to, or tasked councillors and staff with making lego ducks. Hamilton Council.
Nelson City Council $800,000 on a toilet block – twice. New toilet blocks at the Tahunanui and the Millers Acre cost $800,000 each. For a toilet. $800,000 each. $1.6M.
Rotorua Lakes Mayor Steve Chadwick. Seven deputy chief executives. She’s overseen an organisational realignment giving her executive seven deputies, each paid more than $200,000 each. Rotorua. Seven deputies.
Department of Conservation Te Papa. Mistreatment of a dead turtle. So, the Department of Conservation shifted a dead turtle from the Banks Peninsula to Wellington, stored it in Te Papa in a freezer for 21 months before trucking it back down to Canterbury for a high powered fully catered funeral and a helicopter ride to a hilltop burial.
Trevor Mallard of course, $333,000 on legal fees and settlement costs after that false accusation, we well remember that.
Phil Twyford & Michael Wood $785 million for the dumb bike bridge which of course got cancelled so they say “but we didn’t spend the money”. Well, you didn’t, you spend $51 million before you cancelled it.
Jacinda Ardern $2.75 million for the mongrel mob, we all know why.
Tourism NZ – this was a good one, $918,000 for the Rod Stewart sing-along. Remember that? That’s what it cost $918,000. I think $500,000 went to Rod himself.
Lifetime Achievement Award goes to, this year Grant Robertson, Waste Award Winner. Gained his political experience in student politics after stints advising Helen Clark, worked at the University of Otago, was elected the MP for Wellington Central, the one seat that doesn’t seem to care about private sector experience. He announced a $12 billion Covid Response and Recovery Fund and quickly topped it up by another $50 billion. This soon revealed itself to be a Provincial Growth style fund/slush fund, only on a far greater scale.
Full list of the 2021 Jonesy Awards.
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