Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has managed to keep his clothes clean, spending nearly $2000 of taxpayer money on laundry services, credit card statements released today under the Official Information Act show.Credit card statements from November
Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has managed to keep his clothes clean, spending nearly $2000 of taxpayer money on laundry services, credit card statements released today under the Official Information Act show.
Credit card statements from November 2008 to February this year showed that, as expected, Mr McCully spent a lot of time overseas staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.
He travelled everywhere from the Netherlands to Peru and Russia to Tonga during the 15 months.
In that time, he charged $1959.49 worth of laundry and drycleaning to his office's ministerial credit card -- both overseas and on his return to New Zealand.
That included drycleaning two suits that were soiled while he was in Afghanistan last year, but he managed to wipe a $US100 ($NZ148) laundry bill from a New York hotel after it lost two of his shirts.
Another regular in Mr McCully's accounts was gifts for foreign dignitaries.
In the early months of his tenure the gifts consisted largely of All Blacks jerseys and wine.
In the hype following New Zealand's selection for the soccer World Cup, he started gifting All Whites' clothing instead.
