Sandra Goudie MP
National Party Internal Affairs Spokeswoman

7 December 2006

Minister buys time to clean up bad news report on gambling

National Party Internal Affairs spokeswoman Sandra Goudie says Damien O'Connor should drop the cynical delaying tactics he's employing to limit scrutiny of a damning report on the provision of problem gambling services.

"This report will be bad news for Mr O'Connor and his Ministry. It will show they've known about overpayments and under-delivery for some time, but done nothing."

Ms Goudie is commenting on Mr O'Connor's statement yesterday that a report into problem gambling won't be released until next year, after he promised it in November. He has also admitted he already has the document and the Ministry has more work to do.

"I suspect that Mr O'Connor is buying himself some time to try to sweep the serious problems within his department under the carpet.

"He wants to be able to tell the public he's fixed the problem, knowing full well that potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars was being spent on services with few clients.

"It's inevitable this report will show an appalling lack of financial oversight and contract planning by his ministry." Ms Goudie says.

"Damien O'Connor should release the report now and face the music."

ENDS

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