Murray McCully MP for Albany

12 December 2000

Government's flagship policy sinks

The process of determining targets and monitoring the Government's flagship Closing the Gaps programme has become such a disaster that the Prime Minister is now removing herself from the line of fire, National MP Murray McCully said today.

Mr McCully today tabled documents in Parliament which show the Prime Minister wrote to all Ministers on 27 July directing them to set targets and conduct quarterly monitoring. She attached a template of the reporting document she required. Follow-up reminders were sent to Departmental Chief Executives and Ministers' Senior Private Secretaries.

"Yet last week the Prime Minister's own department was refusing to release the targets or the monitoring report.

"With the absence of these reports and Audit Office criticisms of the ability of Te Puni Kokiri to conduct the 'effectiveness audits', on which the Government has said it will determine whether to dock chief executive salaries, it is clear that the Gaps programme is in a shambles.

"I expect Helen Clark will quite quickly fold the Closing the Gaps Cabinet Committee to leave the Ministers she regards as expendable in the line of fire," Mr McCully said.

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