John Armstrong covers the cost of the Don Brash 2025 Taskforce  in the NZ Herald today.  It is simply absurd that New Zealanders should keep shelling out for John Key’s government to have a straw man that pops up annually in an attempt to make them look more moderate.  They clearly have no intention of following through on the report, so why should we carry the cost?  Just can the whole thing now.

On the subject of the costs, I am wondering if the $150,000 spent so far includes the costs of having Matthew Hooton as the PR man for the report.  Matthew very properly declared his interest as the spin doctor for the report in Nine to Noon politics slot on Monday.  Matthew is very good at what he does in terms of PR and does not come cheap, so it may well be that his costs are not included.

I do wonder quite why it was necessary to contract an external PR agency to spin the report.  The government has spent a lot of time telling us there are too many communications staff in Ministries and Departments, surely one of them could have handled this?