Just in case you missed the Beehive’s news of another PGF handout, a New Zealand First MP announced it, too

The Point of Order Trough Monitor, programmed to alert us to ministerial handouts, nevertheless sounded the alarm when the latest Provincial Growth Fund spending was announced by a politician further down in the pecking order.

Accordingly we have learned that the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) has allocated $3.5 million to develop innovative predator control approaches which will reduce the need for repeated 1080 use.

The news was delivered in an embargoed press release from a New Zealand back-bencher, conservation spokeswoman Jenny Marcroft.

Perhaps she was hoping to draw attention from other matters involving her party.

Perhaps she was hoping the media were less likely to miss the announcement if it was made more than once.

Or perhaps she wanted to give greater emphasis to the role the PGF is playing in finding ways of reducing the use of 1080, the most effective way of eradicating pests such as rats and possums but a poison passionately opposed by some environmentalists.

We muse on the second two possibilities because the news was also announced – the official announcement, you could say – by Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau.

This announcement (posted on the Beehive website) says –

When Marcroft got around to asking a good question about the PGF, the Speaker ruled it out of order

NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft – we may suppose – has yet to become a Point of Order subscriber.

We suppose this on the strength of a patsy question she put to Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones in Parliament yesterday.

We must confess we were gobmacked by the gall of the question – she wanted to know what recent Provincial Growth Fund announcements Jones had made.

Clearly she was oblivious to this blog’s regular reportage of PGF distributions, as we record the government spending detected by the Point of Order Trough Monitor.  

More bizarre, the flood of PGF announcements from Jones is recorded on the Beehive website.  Marcroft’s staff (it seems) have yet to show her how to use her computer to find out where the money is going.

Like anyone else, the MP – or her staff – can find them here.