New Zealand minister watched porn using official credit card

AUCKLAND - A former minister in the New Zealand government used his official credit card for watching pornographic movies while he stayed in hotels during his tenure, a media report said Thursday.

Shane Jones, former minister for building and construction in 2007-08, admitted using his ministerial credit card to charter a plane and buy wine, magazines and books and pornographic movies when he stayed at hotels.

Jones apologised at a live radio show that he was a “red-blooded adult”.

“At various times, I have stayed in hotels and, I have to put my hand up, watched blue movies and then ended up paying them back. It shouldn’t have happened, it has happened, it doesn’t make me feel particularly worthy but I’m not going to hide from it,” the New Zealand Herald reported Thursday quoting Jones as telling Radio New Zealand.

Jones had spent about $5,000 on his credit card.

The radio show hosts asked Jones whether the movies were of “an adult nature”. Jones, however, said he could not remember.

“I can’t recall exactly what they were; drugs sex or rock and roll. I am a movie buff. I don’t recall. I watch a lot of movies … I don’t know. I won’t rule it out but I don’t remember,” he said.

Asked what made him use his ministerial card for personal expenses, Jones said it was “a very faulty judgement and there is nothing I can say to explain it”.

“I hasten to add not Playboys or Penthouse,” he said.

Wine costs included an event at which he hosted a group of architects and about $300 of wine was drunk. He said he thought it was a “work expense”.

Jones, however, paid the money back in late 2008 after the election.

“I knew one day there was going to be a reckoning with disclosures over credit cards.”