Chippie wins!

The Taxpayers’ Union announced the finalists and winners for the 2026 Jonesie Awards for wasteful spending. A lifetime achievement award went to Chippie for:

Chris Hipkins won the Lifetime Achievement Award for his once-in-a-generation waste of $35 billion of Covid Response and Recovery Fund spending burned on non-Covid initiatives. That is $17,157 for every New Zealand household, shovelled from the taxpayer onto non-Covid projects during an international crisis.”

The central govt nominees were:

1. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Going for growth): The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet recorded 27 attempts by staff to access “adult entertainment websites” on government devices, up from 24 in the previous year.

2. Te Pāti Māori Co-Leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi:

3. Minister Brooke van Velden ($150,000 cone hotline): Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden allocated $150,000 to establish a public hotline for road cone complaints – a hotline that wasn’t even a hotline! The submission tool received just over 1,000 complaints before closing early, equating to roughly $140 per complaint.

4. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Mystery iPhone robber): Between 2022 and 2025, 258 iPhones and 22 iPads (an average of two per week over the period) were reported missing from MBIE, at a cost of $137,000. Have they not heard of Find My iPhone?

5. Tertiary Education Commission (Fees Free skydiving courses): More than $1.2 million in Fees Free funding has been used to subsidise skydiving courses for students. The Government’s Fees Free programme contributes $12,000 per student, leaving trainee skydivers to fork out just $1,500 – $7.50 per jump.

The TPM co-leaders took out that category.

And in local government:

1. Wellington City Council ($2.3 million disco loos): Wellington City Council spent $2.3 million on a public toilet block under former Mayor Tory Whanau, including $147,000 on decorative lighting.

2. Selwyn District Council (Child governance): Selwyn District Council included children’s feedback in its long-term planning consultation on housing, rates and infrastructure. The Council later admitted it did not separate children’s submissions from adult submissions before they were reviewed by councillors.

3. Auckland Council ($118 million consultant spend): Auckland Council spent $118 million on consultants in the first two full financial years of Mayor Wayne Brown’s term. The spending comes as the Super City faces a record rates hike, with the mayoral office alone spending $2.5 million on consultants over two years, compared with $4,110 across four years under former Mayor Phil Goff.

4. Mahé Drysdale ($470k coffees): Tauranga City Council spent over $470,000 on coffee machines and beans for staff, a decision occurring under a term that included a 36 percent rates increase, the highest-paid councillors in the country, and a $92 million council headquarters project.

5. Christchurch City Council (243 flights during climate emergency): Local councils spent $1.3 million on international flights over five years. Christchurch City Council spent more than $211,000 on 243 international flights – the most flights recorded by any council that had declared a climate emergency

I thought it should have gone to WCC, but hard to meat Mahe Drysdale and almost $500k on coffee!

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