Brief thought: "Labour did it too"

One of the reasons we haven’t colonized Mars yet is almost certainly the tendency of both sides of the political spectrum in NZ to scream “WELL HE DID IT TOO, TEACHER!!!” whenever their folk are in trouble.

The current “Bill English getting paid to live at home with his wife and children” rort is a classic example.

Apparently leftwing bloggers have No Right [Turn?] to think this is a fucking disgrace, because oooh, well, Labour did totes the same things when they were in Government, and at least it’s in the open, so, um, National should totes get cookies for going along with something organised and promoted by the Greens and which really only occurred because of the UK MPs’ expense scandal.

You know what?  If Labour Ministers also got paid to live in their own homes, that’s also a fucking disgrace.  But that’s a smokescreen for the actual issue, which is tragically bigger than being-paid-to-live-in-your-own-home: that the people who are doing it are the ones who are cutting funding to physical therapy for children with disabilities.  The people who are doing it are cutting ACE classes because they’re “hobby courses”.  The people who are doing it are preaching the same old tighten-your-belts, bootstraps-bootstraps-bootstraps bullshit they always do and helping themselves to the lolly jar at the same time.

This is revolting no matter who’s doing it.  It’s the added cherry of hypocrisy that pushes this shit sundae to the top of the class.