Forget the limousine lifestyle, Mr Bridges. Ever heard of rental cars? Or taxis? Or Uber? Or even KiwiRail come to that?
It is easy to poke fun at National’s still newish, yet already somewhat beleaguered leader in the wake of the leaking to the media of the mega-sized blowout of his spending on travel.
But there is nothing funny about an MP racking up those expenses to a level as much as eight times than that he was incurring prior to him securing his party’s No 1 job.
As Leader of the Opposition, Bridges is entitled to use the chauffeur-driven limousines hired out to Cabinet ministers by the Department of Internal Affairs VIP transport service. But the taxpayer picks up the bill
Sure, it is necessity for a new party leader — especially one who is an unknown quantity in most people’s minds — to get out and about.
That means he or she is going to spend more on travel. Bridges’ $83,000-plus bill for the three months from April to June is in another league altogether, however.
It makes a nonsense of National’s ever constant holier-than-thou vilification of Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens as being locked in a governing troika in which those parties are united by only one thing —an unquenchable craving to spend, spend, spend, only need to spend some more.
While National might preach fiscal rectitude in public, it is clearly not shy of sucking as many dollars out of the system as it can manage out of the public glare.
The standard line is that MPs travel around the country courtesy of the taxpayer on the understanding they are conducting "parliamentary business".
That is licence to do just about anything. But the nationwide "roadshow" which witnessed Bridges address some 70 public meetings was something else again.
It was more accurately a "get to know you" exercise in self-promotion.
To be blunt, it was state funding of a political party in drag.
But it was not cheap.
Tracking down how much the Department of Internal Affairs charges the various branches of government, Parliament and the judiciary to hire its vehicles is not easy.
Back in 2010, however, it was revealed that the service charged $90 per hour plus $1.25 per kilometre. You can guarantee that those rates have risen during the intervening years.
That information about hire fees came to light after Labour’s Phil Goff ran up close to $70,000 in travel costs while he was Leader of the Opposition.
Goff at least had the decency to feel embarrassment at the size of his travel bill. Bridges has been utterly unapologetic.
But then he knows he will get away with brazening it out.
The voting public has grown tired of being indignant at the kind of profligacy displayed by Bridges.
Moreover, when it comes to sniping at each other, there is an unspoken pact between the parties in Parliament that this territory is out of bounds.
There is a big danger of the pot calling the kettle black.
By example, you only have to peruse other recent three-monthly returns of travel and accommodation expenses to discover no less a figure than Jacinda Ardern recorded no less than $82,000 in expenses during one three-month period.
That sum was the result of the extensive travel that is part and parcel of an election campaign and Ardern’s status at that time as the Leader of the Opposition.
That would have enabled her to set up a mobile office in the back of a VIP transport service limousine.
Was that likewise state funding ? You betcha. Such an advantage was not available to the leaders or co-leaders of New Zealand First or the Greens.
But no-one wants to go there.
And that was why this week’s fuss about Bridges’ expenses very quickly shifted from focussing on what was leaked to the question of who leaked it.
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