The New Zealand Taxpayers Union can reveal through an Official Information Request that $605,499 of corporate welfare was given by the Māori Language Commission to PB Tech for the development of Te Reo Keyboards.

Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:

“Instead of using taxpayer dollars to improve the lives of Māori, the government is giving corporate handouts straight into the pockets of big business. Subsidising PB Tech with Kiwis’ hard-earned money is the equivalent of throwing taxpayer dollars in the bin.”

“Taxpayers have wasted more than 600k on an initiative that PB Tech had already started working on. Clearly the business case already existed without corporate welfare, so why are the public now on the hook for the costs?”

“If the private sector is already delivering or creating a product that the market demands, the public purse does not need to be subsidising it. PB Tech can more than afford to stand on their own two feet.”

© Scoop Media