Why do Taxpayers Have to Cough Up for Pokie Machine Distributor?

ACT Finance spokesman Rodney Hide said today that it was outrageous that Jim Anderton's so-called "Job Machine" had collared $100,000 of taxpayer cash to give to the company Gaming Machine Distributors Limited for "business growth".

"I have no beef with this company. I just don't believe that taxpayers should be made to fund any business. It's wrong that some businesses get a hand-out but their competitors don't.

"We can't run a successful economy applying the welfare model to business. The best policy is to give every business tax relief rather than hand-outs just for the chosen few.

"The handout to a pokie game distributor is especially ironic given that just last year in a speech at the International Conference on Problem Gambling, Jim Anderton declared that New Zealand was 'saturated' with pokie machines and called for the number to be capped.

"The trouble with Mr Anderton's "Hands-On" policy is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," Mr Hide said.

© Scoop Media