More doubt cast on Labour’s backdoor Green funding

National Party Deputy Leader Gerry Brownlee says more doubt has been cast on the legitimacy of the taxpayer-funded Ministerial advisers working for the Greens.

“The Auditor-General is currently looking at what National believes is a back-door method for Labour to lend its support to the Greens using taxpayer money.

“Labour’s misusing the Ministerial Services fund. This is reserved for Government Ministers to draw on. The Greens are neither Ministers, nor part of the Government.

“When National recently raised public attention to this issue we were told the State Services Commission had been consulted in the process.

“Now we know that’s just not true,” says Mr Brownlee.

He is referring to a letter from State Services Commissioner Mark Prebble which says ‘any implication that these staffing arrangements were run past me during those discussions is incorrect. Neither I nor the State Services Commission provided comment or advice on those staffing arrangements’.

“Given that one of these advisers is actually the Green Party chief of staff, National remains convinced that the appointments don’t fit Ministerial Services criteria.”

Mr Brownlee says Labour should suspend the funding arrangement until the Auditor-General’s office delivers its report.

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