Rodney hides his credibility

ACT leader Rodney Hide’s days as the self-proclaimed, parliamentary perk buster are well and truly at an end.
Whatever credibility Rodders had gained from voters for his frequent admonishing of fellow MPs for wasting taxpayer funds on ‘perks’ has now disappeared faster than his waste-line, after it was revealed he took his girlfriend on a recent world trip care of the public purse.
It was bad enough that the poisoned-dwarf used more than $25,000 of taxpayer funds to take his squeeze on the 10-day world trip, but his arrogant and defiant justification of his antics was even worse.
After being caught with his snout deep in the taxpayer trough, Hide said that while he disagreed with the perk that gives MPs a taxpayer-funded 90 percent fare discount for themselves and their partners - he still used it to take his girlfriend overseas. The air fares for Louise Crome's trip to London, Canada and the United States are reported to have cost $25,163.
According to the former truck driver and Dancing with the Stars competitor the perk was "a silly anachronism", but it existed and he couldn't change it.
"I don't agree with that rule, but I'm not a martyr," Hide told Radio New Zealand. "I checked twice with the prime minister that it was acceptable. It got all the ticks."
Crap - you sawn off, pompous git - it is totally unacceptable; especially given your holier-than-thou to other MPs and their use of public funds.
Hide made a name for himself as a "perk-buster" when he first came to Parliament and demanded an end to allowances such as the one he used to take Ms Crome overseas.
Is this another example of judgement going out the window by an MP full of his own importance and losing touch with voters due to the rarefied air that tends to dominate Wellington’s beltway?
I have no problem with Hide himself taking the trip care of taxpayers – as he is minister of local government and took the trip to see for himself how other cities handled changes to their council structures. However, I do object to him dipping into the public purse to pay for this girlfriend to tag along. I mean $25 grand for 10 days just so he has some eye candy on his arm and someone to do the horizontal foxtrot with each night?
As a taxpayer, I would have preferred if he had of hired a $1000 a night hooker for each of the 10 nights he was away – it would have been cheaper!
"I made a decision to go on this trip because I've got a very big job in Auckland implementing the transition," Hide said in trying to justify his first class bludging. "I then had to justify whether or not I took my partner. I think it's important for me personally, but more particularly for me to do a good job as an MP and a minister, that I maintain my private and personal life."
Here are a couple of questions I would like to ask. Why should I pay for him to take his latest squeeze on a business trip? How many organisations in the real world would do that? How come Rodders cannot bear to be without his girlfriend of less than a year for 10 nights – but can survive without seeing his own son from his previous marriage for much longer? And just what experience in local government re-organisation does the injured professional squash playing Ms Crome have that was so critical in having her on this trip?
Sorry Rodney, but you are a hypocrite and your moral authority to criticise anyone ever again for wasting public money has gone forever.