Premier Jennifer Smith is to attend a European conference next week -- despite the fact that both a Minister and a civil servant are already booked to attend.

Yesterday a Government spokesman confirmed that the Premier, along with her chief of staff Lt. Col David Burch, Labour and Home Affairs Minister Paula Cox and Labour and Training Director Edwin Wilson, would be attending an International Labour Organisation conference in Geneva, Switzerland, next week.

Opposition Leader Pamela Gordon claimed that PLP MPs were "looking after themselves'' and argued the new Government was being frivolous with taxpayers' money.

And she poured scorn on PLP promises to make Government more cost-effective.

The Government's Election manifesto claimed: "We will introduce new standards of revenue management and we will root out waste and inefficiency.'' And in a double page advertisement placed in The Royal Gazette shortly after her historic Election victory Ms Smith gave the people a personal pledge that she would appoint a "scissorman'' to "cut out crippling rigidity or pockets of sloppiness within our systems''.

But when told about the trip Ms Gordon said: "Well it seems to me that the Premier and the new Government are seeking ways to spend the people's money.

"I guess the challenge here is that what I am concerned about is that the Government is committed to spending $35 million more than in previous years and they seem to have total disregard for the people's money.

"It's time for the people to decide if they are satisfied that they are getting value for money.

"It would be normal for a civil servant to go to provide continuity, and then you would normally have one political person -- they're sending three.

"People should be concerned about the amount of money they will be spending in relation to travel costs and hotel costs and food and entertaining -- you are looking at it in triplefold.'' Ms Gordon argued that, with Ms Cox attending the conference, there was no need for the Premier and her Chief of Staff to go.

"People will call on the trips I went on but never did I go on a trip where it looked as though I was usurping a minister,'' she said.

"Does the Premier not trust Paula Cox and if she does what is the purpose of her visit? Is she saying that the Minister is not capable of representing Bermuda?'' Ms Gordon also blasted the new Government for being hypocritical, claiming that, when she was Premier and overseas, the PLP accused her of not focusing on issues closer to home.

"When you have issues such as the White Paper, which the Government has been silent on, issues such as housing which we have heard nothing about, we were going to get a drugs Czar -- are the problems of the country being addressed? And, referring to reports of ministers flying first class and travelling in limousines, she argued that some Government politicians where getting too much of a taste of the highlife.

"There's a double standard here,'' Ms Gordon said. "It was seen as wrong whenever the UBP was seen to be participating in all the trappings, but it is the PLP who want all the trappings at the expense of the people of the country. They are looking after themselves.'' Efforts to reach Ms Smith on Wednesday and yesterday were unsuccessful.