CHRISTCHURCH EDITION
press.co.nz
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2011
Taxpayers
fund long
commute
Retail $1.40
Mine widow seeks husband’s council seat
Kate Chapman and Martin Kay
Taxpayers are picking up the
tab for Children’s Commissioner John Angus to
commute to work in Wellington from his home in Central
Otago, despite his being paid
more than $180,000 year.
The National-led Government has been publicly calling for a tightening of belts in
the public sector since its
election, but when Social
Development Minister Paula
Bennett appointed Angus she
agreed to pay for his flights
and accommodation to get to
work in the capital.
Angus was required to
disclose his expense details as
part of the State Services
Commission’s plan to release
them every six months.
According
to
the
commission’s annual report
last October, he was paid
between $180,000 and $189,999
for the year to June 30.
He originally took over the
role for six months in May
2009 when Cindy Kiro left.
At that time it was agreed
that his travel costs from
Lowburn, near Cromwell, and
accommodation in Wellington
would be paid.
‘‘When that period was
extended a further 13 months,
the agreement was amended
to cover travel costs with
John Angus agreeing to pay
for his Wellington accommodation personally,’’ a spokeswoman for Bennett said.
The taxpayer continues to
fund his flights.
Expense disclosures from
Angus show he charged
$4583.31 in the six months to
December 31 last year for
travel between Wellington
and Lowburn. That included
flights to Queenstown and
Wanaka and taxis from
Wellington Airport.
The expenses were listed
as ‘‘travel home’’. He travelled
home three times in July,
twice in September and once
in each of November and
December.
Angus’ appointment was
due to end in December but
has been extended while a
replacement is found.
The appointment process
is under way.
‘‘There are run-on provisions to ensure the current
commissioner stays on until a
replacement
is
found,’’
Bennett’s spokeswoman said.
‘‘Those provisions have
been enacted and the commissioner has agreed to stay
on until a replacement is
appointed.’’
WHAT BOSSES SPENT
Standout public sector
expenses:
■ Northland and Auckland
District Health Board chief
executives Karen Roach
and Garry Smith spent
$18,996 and $13,574
respectively on travel
between Auckland and
Wellington in the six
months to December 31. In
the same period Roach
charged just $45 in
teleconferencing costs.
■ Walking Access
Commission boss Mark
Neeson spent just over
$11,000 visiting Canada,
Scotland and England on a
fact-finding mission.
■ Te Puni Kokiri head Leith
Comer spent $9127 to
travel to Shanghai to
attend the World Expo and
a further $1171 for a
farewell for a long-serving
staff member.
Labour leader Phil Goff
said it was not appropriate
that taxpayers funded Angus’
commute and there were
many people qualified to be
children’s commissioner.
‘‘Normally if someone
decides they want to live out
of the place where they
normally work they meet that
cost, other than a short-term
appointment where you
might sensibly decide to do
that.’’
Correspondence obtained
under the Official Information Act shows many
public sector bosses were not
happy about the level of
disclosure required of them.
Angus said he was comfortable for the information to be
released.
Some, such as Government
Superannuation Fund Auth-
■ IRD chief executive Bob
Russell charged $139 for
four shirts for cultural
presentation in Japan.
■ Agriculture Ministry chief
executive Murray Sherwin
charged $688 for flights
and $32 for parking to
attend the funeral of a
senior manager’s father in
Gisborne in September.
■ Department of
Conservation directorgeneral Al Morrison spent
$70 to $80 a month on
flowers for the reception
area.
■ Outgoing chief censor Bill
Hastings got a $500
parting gift from acting
chief censor Nicola
McCully. Morning tea to
mark his leaving in July
cost almost $400. Both
were racked up to the
credit card of the Office of
Film and Literature
Classification.
ority chief executive Alan
Langford, do not appear to
have used their credit cards at
all in the final six months of
last year, but others were not
so frugal.
State Services Commission
head Iain Rennie, who has
asked public sector bosses to
show restraint, racked up
$1034 on farewell lunches at
upmarket Wellington eateries
for departing chief executives
over three months.
Research, Science and
Technology Ministry boss
Lesley Middleton charged
$23.38 for a taxi ride to pick up
costumes for a staff function
and IRD top dog Bob Russell
spent $190 on candy canes for
1300 staff.
❯❯ Revolt A2
Empty seat: Anna Osborne, widow of miner and Grey District councillor Milton Osborne, outside the council building in Greymouth.
‘Milton would have wanted it’
Amy Glass
The widow of the Grey
District councillor who died
in the Pike River coalmine
hopes to take her husband’s
place at the council table.
Anna Osborne said yesterday her husband, Milton
Osborne, would have wanted
her to run for the seat.
‘‘He would have expected it
actually,’’ she said. ‘‘I want to
take over where he left off. We
had a lot of shared views and
similar ideas.’’
‘
I want to take over where he left off. We had
a lot of shared views and similar ideas.
The Grey District Council
will hold a by-election to
replace Milton Osborne, who
was one of the 13 contractors,
along with 16 miners, killed in
the November 19 explosion.
Anna Osborne, who works as
a teacher aide, had two
Anna Osborne
miner’s widow
children with Osborne.
She said she decided to put
her name forward after being
saddened by a report in The
Press about her husband’s
empty seat at the council
table.
The move was a way of
honouring her husband’s
memory, she said.
While she still could not
fully grasp that her husband
would never return from Pike
River, the victims’ families
were supporting each other
and she was working with a
committee to erect a memorial to the men.
She said she was also
fighting for the return of her
husband’s remains to give her
family ‘‘closure’’.
Milton
Osborne
had
recently
been
elected
unopposed for his second
term on the council at the
time of his death.
The by-election cannot be
held until the coroner has
issued a death certificate for
Osborne.
Death certificates are due
to be issued after last week’s
limited-scope inquest into the
Pike River tragedy.
Nominations for the seat
will open on Friday and
voting will be by postal ballot.
The results will be announced
on April 16.
■ INTERNET EXPLORER
Microsoft warns of serious security hole
Antonio Bradley
Millions of Kiwi internet
users are at risk of having
their computers hijacked and
their emails, credit cards and
bank accounts hacked.
Microsoft has issued a
global warning that there is a
security hole in Internet
Explorer that allows hackers
to install malicious scripts.
The flaw affects all
versions of Windows and
users could be targeted
simply by visiting an infected
website. The latest data from
research company Nielsen
THE TEMPORARY FIX
■ Go to http:/
/support.microsoft.com/
kb/2501696
■ Scroll down and click the
‘‘Fix It’’ button under the
‘‘Enable’’ heading
■ Follow the download and
installation instructions
said about 1.8 million New
Zealanders used Internet
Explorer to browse the internet in 2009.
Microsoft has not developed a permanent fix and
users are protected only if
they install the temporary fix
themselves, as Microsoft has
yet to deliver an automatic
update. InternetNZ chief
executive Vikram Kumar said
yesterday the threat was
serious, and he was alarmed
that people could not rely on
Microsoft’s automatic updates
to fix it.
‘‘How do you expect an
average person to first be
aware of it, and second
understand that they actually
have to go to the Microsoft
website and fix their computer?’’
Kumar said that, once a
script infiltrated a computer,
a person’s emails, internet
banking and credit card
details could be accessed.
‘‘Once you click on a link
and the script starts running,
it can pick up all the
information that you type in
. . . Pretty much it can act as
you in any part of the
internet.’’
Microsoft said it had yet to
encounter ‘‘indications of
active exploitation of the
vulnerability’’, but the flaw
was serious and it was aware
of the idea being used.
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Users of other browsers
such as Google Chrome and
Firefox are not affected.
The Government was
reviewing the vulnerability
yesterday, but had not
released an alert to corporate
networks, including government agencies.
A spokesman for the
Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection said those
networks were not immune to
internet-related threats to
security, but they had not
received reports of the vulnerability being exploited in
New Zealand or overseas.