‘Riding the gravy train’: Why our politicians are no longer like us
Tuesday, 23 June 2026
Joel Maxwell (Te Rarawa) is a senior journalist.
OPINION: You know the thing that really bugs me about NZ First minister Shane Jones spending $63,000 on some swanky trip to Canada, to schmooze mining big wigs, was the on-call limo service he used.
It wasn’t even a New Zealand limo business. We in Aotearoa didn’t even get to dip our beak in some of the taxpayer-funded action.
Instead he poured money into the local economy of a country that decided to have two main languages, one of which isn’t even English. Remember how important the English language is? It’s the not-reo one that Winston Peters is valiantly legislating as the official tongue of the universe.
Actually I don’t want to pick on Jones alone because, as a friend pointed out, he was simply part of a rapidly forming pattern of personal spending by the Coalition Government.
Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.
There was ACT’s Karen Chhour who simply refuses to not drive to the airport. She spent nearly $17,000 on airport parking across a couple of years in a running battle with Didi. If this is a clever plan by ACT to make people hate paying taxes, then it‘s worked on me.
At least Chhour’s racking up bills while following her preference to “self-drive”. When was the last time Jones did a self-drive? And I’m not using a euphemism for when he booked that hotel porn on a taxpayer credit card back in the day.
Jones topped overall domestic travel and accommodation spending this term, coming in at about $420,000; National’s Louise Upston was second at $400,000.
Ahhh Upston - she was the social development minister putting the screws on freeloading beneficiaries, who claimed $52,000 a year accommodation allowance for an apartment she owns in Wellington. Yes, I’m aware that’s perfectly legit under the rules apparently. But… you know.
Somebody needs to take charge of this coalition. And we all know it won’t be the prime minister. In an odd paradox, Christopher Luxon will surely make New Zealand history as the most phantasmagorical PM ever, beating even Norm Kirk who spent the last year of his term in Waimate Lawn Cemetery.
I would ask Winston to do something but, to my shock, he’s been praising his deputy for getting such a heroic deal with the limo. Now that I think about it, I’m appalled that Jones had to walk from the limo to his hotel room when he could have been carried there on a litter by an entourage of Toronto’s foremost eunuchs.
Believe it or not, and somewhat horrifyingly, Jones is a role model. All politicians are role models.
So in the interests of trying to be positive, I’m working hard to find some lessons he can impart to rangatahi Māori that aren’t more of an Aesopian warning.
Here goes: Never accept premium economy on the taxpayer when you can demand business class.
If we squint the right way I think we can discern a metaphor for aiming high or something.
Anyway, I know that Labour went through a bit of a dry spell with policy announcements, but they’re doing stuff like planning to dump prescription charges, make public transport cheaper for worker drones like myself (it will save me $30 a week - that’s $1560 a year, which would maybe get me half a day of Jassi Limousine Services on my next trip to Toronto), and offering free maternity scans, which I’m hoping to never, ever have to use again.
When I think of actual policies, I’m no longer quite so bothered about politicians inevitably getting on the gravy train and disappointing me as role models.
Good policies will all be quite helpful to people like us.
And the last half of the previous sentence is part of the problem, I think. As they walk through those doors at Parliament, politicians are instantly not people like us. We built a palace for them on Molesworth St and some obligingly populate it.
Sometimes I think the best we can hope for is that they don’t forget us.