NZ Deputy Speaker Criticises Media Over Foreign Trips

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives in New Zealand, Chester Borrows has slammed the media for its wrong scrutiny of his overseas trips. He has opined that his trips to Europe would prove good for his country’s economy.

Borrows said that though such free hits sold column inches, yet they reflected a total lack of commendation of the work of a member of parliament. While on a trip to France, he said, “Do you only visit in crisis and never keep in touch with friends? The welcome we received was incredibly warm but such relations grow GDP in ways such as supporting and encouraging tourism. France sends 31,000 tourists to NZ each year with an average stay of 44 days.”

Borrows, in a write up to a newspaper, commented that since constitutional diplomacy did not sell and fill columns, the reporters have refrained from covering the positive aspects of a recent Speaker’s delegation to Europe. He wrote in the context of his two-week European trip that covered Britain, Germany, Poland, Ireland and France. Expenses incurred were nearly 140,000 New Zealand dollars ($134,400). A number of parliamentarians had also travelled economy class in lieu of business to be able to take partners along with them totally free of cost. Borrows highlighted the trip’s beneficial points saying that it was good value for the taxpayers’ money as there was immense learning from the trip.

He told a newspaper with regard to his trip to Germany, “We have spent forever telling ourselves that New Zealand is a pimple of the bottom of the globe, and nobody of any substance either knows where we are, what we are about….” In an apparent attempt to justify his trips, he added that the French, the Polish and the Irish too knew scant little about New Zealand.

He had earlier remarked that he had felt the same “when I delivered a paper to the Restorative Justice Council in London, but nobody noticed. Or when I made an intervention at the Commonwealth Law Ministers meeting in Botswana last May. Guess what, nobody reported that either.”

The writer can be contacted at ritambanati@yahoo.com