Professor Robert MacCulloch: Government House refurbishment

In Wellington's crazy world of wastage, no money could be found to do up Government House, right? Wrong.

The derelict state of the Prime Minister's Official Residence on Tinakori Road in Wellington has been blamed on conservative government finances. We were told it would have been too much of an extravagance to spend a million bucks making it fit as a place where the PM could work and use for State occasions.

It's now in such bad state that Chris Luxon doesn't want to move in - which Big Media are loving in their desperation to paint him as being out-of-touch with the common man. On the bright side, hasn't the government been careful with how it spends our money in the Windy City? Given close to nothing has been spent on what-is-meant-to-be the PM's official house, you would expect less than nothing has been spent by our politicians & bureaucrats on the Governor General's residence in Wellington, right? Especially since the PM has all of the power in NZ, whereas someone like King Charles' representative, namely our GG, is almost entirely a figure-head nowadays. Most of us don't even know their name.

Well, you'd be wrong. Labour's 2008 Budget set aside $47.4 million to do up the Governor General's house. Don't you just love Wellington's priorities? It's not that NZ has ever been short of money - it's just that a group of incompetents has prioritized the wrong projects. Here's an idea to blow the mind of Wellington officials - why doesn't the PM move into Government House, take down the sign and replace it with one that says, "The PM's House". Meanwhile get the removal folks to send the Governor General packing down to the Tinakori Road shack.

Sources:
https://gg.govt.nz/government-house/government-house-wellington/government-house-conservation

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.