Hon Murray McCully MP National Party State Services Spokesman

18 January 2004

Throwing Good Money After Bad

The Government's plan to give $2.5 million to a "Strengthening Management and Governance" pilot scheme for Maori organisations has been condemned as "throwing good money after bad", by National MP Murray McCully.

He's commenting on reports that Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere will announce the scheme tomorrow (Monday, 19 January).

Mr McCully says the $2.5 million pilot comes "hard on the heels of nearly $50 million of so-called Capacity Building grants to Maori organisations which - according to the Government - are designed, among other things, to strengthen management and governance.

"The fact is that the $50 million in Capacity Building grants has largely been wasted on anything from family re-unions to table tennis tournaments; pensioners bus tours of the South Island to children's skate boarding and break dancing competitions, as well as funding people to write reports to ask for even more money.

"Having presided over this appalling waste, Mr Tamihere now has the effrontery to throw another $2.5 million at strengthening the governance of organisations on which his Government has already wasted $50 million - a classic case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

"The simple truth of the matter is that the Capacity Building and other Closing the Gaps programmes have failed. In part they have done so because they are based upon race, not need.

"The solution is to scrap ethnically funded programmes, and target funding on the basis of need, not race. As long as the Government persists with divisive racially based programmes, they will fail Maori, and they will fail New Zealand. A few sermons about governance from Mr Tamihere will make no difference," Mr McCully says.

Ends

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