Government's Festival Favouritism Comes Back To Bite Taxpayers

"As we pointed out last month, the festival sector has been a beneficiary of favouritism from this Government," says Taxpayers' Union spokesman Jordan Williams. "The Government singled out the festival sector for support with its Events Transition Support Scheme while small businesses across Auckland and Northland were floundering. Then they let a platoon of foreign DJs and support staff take up valuable MIQ slots ahead of stranded Kiwis."

"Now this favouritism is coming back to bite taxpayers, with one favoured foreign DJ breaching self-isolation while positive for the omicron variant. If this results in an outbreak, you can bet that the resulting alert level changes and business support will come with an eye-watering cost."

"The economics of this are nuts. Regardless of the merits of the MIQ system, so long as we have limited spaces we should be doling them out in a way that serves the best interests of New Zealanders. That means putting Kiwis first, or at least allocating the 'economic' slots to highest-bidders as we suggested in November. It's impossible to eliminate risk, but we can at least balance it with our best interests."

"The Government's decision to prioritise DJs during a pandemic looks especially fishy when you remember Rhythm and Vines was founded by a mate of Clarke Gayford, Gayford himself is set to DJ at Splore in February, and even Jacinda Ardern has performed at Laneway back in 2014."

"If John Key was still Prime Minister and he changed the COVID rules for rich golfers, there would rightly be outrage. How is this any different?"

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