No Choice for Maori in need

Kay Brereton the Coordinator of the Wellington People's Centre comments; "that while it is a commendable move to extend the Whanau Ora concept, and fully fund this service delivery model, it is essential that people are still given choices about their social service provider, and are not catergorised because of their ethnicity.

While there are many services such as health and social support that can be delivered very well by a community for that community, we would be very concerned to see a core government function such as the delivery of statutory financial support in the form of benefits put into the control of a non government agency.

Under a privatized delivery model the risk of judgment and bias would become even more problematic for a welfare system which already struggles significantly with the challenge of treating people fairly and consistently.

Do we really want to go down the track that Australia has with its indigenous people?

Where individual Aboriginal welfare spending is monitored and judged while the rest of the population is given welfare payments without the same scrutiny.

People need to examine the government's proposals very carefully and consider whether this is the direction we want New Zealand to be moving in."

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