Sandra Goudie MP
National Party Internal Affairs Spokeswoman

17 November 2006

Where’s the problem-gambling report?

National Party Internal Affairs spokeswoman Sandra Goudie says Damien O’Connor should say if his office is busy censoring the Health Ministry’s report into the overpayment of groups dealing with problem gamblers.

“This was a report the Minister said would be available on November 3. We’re still waiting. What’s the hold-up?

“Potentially, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been poured into counselling services that were never delivered. Mr O’Connor promised to get answers. Where are they?”

Earlier this month National released documents showing vastly different sums were being paid to problem-gambling providers, including one group which received $86,124 for counselling just six clients.

In some cases, all that was delivered was a 16-minute phone conversation.

“This Minister's officials have been getting quarterly reports that should have shown problem-gambling providers were falling well short of contracted levels, yet he failed to do anything about it until it was raised in Parliament.”

Ms Goudie says Damien O’Connor must make all the details in the report public.

ENDS

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