Thursday 13 November 2008

DEPARTING PRESS SECRETARIES AND GETTING INTO SEE A MINISTER, AND TRANS TASMAN

All press secretaries are on force majeure contracts. That means that when your Minister walks - you walk too and you get 2 months redundancy. Sounds like a good deal - but not really it seems - we know that one of the prawns who is in a government department where the redundancy is 4 months. And apparently the pay has not risen much for press secs in 10 years either. Socialists do the job for love it seems.

The other issue is the exorbitant cost that the previous administration extracted for audiences with Ministers. It was high. Complain about a lack of access and you got a visit from a party official who loves Melbourne ( or was it Sydney???) and then there was a suggestion that a donation was good. We heard that one company stumped up $50k.
It was simply - outrageous - but not something that many people would discuss openly. But it appears everyone is talking about it now.
Then there are the PR/Govt relations "gurus" who charged people $5000 and up for a meeting with a Minister.We would hope that will not be condoned under the new regime.
And Trans- Tasman has some good stuff on Nicky Hager and pan Maori caucuses this week - you can either subscribe to it ( its worth it ) or for more information on these two snippets you can read this and this.
However we do know one thing that TransTasman doesn't - We have it on very good authority that Queen Bee is really none other than the vivacious blonde Sarah Palin look a like Cathy Wood.

3 comments:

Cactus Kate said...

Can't be true.

That Cathy is FAR too devious to ever actually be caught blogging.

Anonymous said...

Holy Cow - I knew they were corrupt, but not to this extent!!!

Anonymous said...

roar

How good is your info on the 'cash-for-access' claim? Which ministers does it relate to?

Over the past few years, plenty of industry groups I work with have requested to meet 'my' minister.

A couple of phone calls to the private secretary has always got them in the door, with nary a hint of payment required.