Policy in Disarray

Tuesday 11 Dec 2001 Richard Prebble Press Releases -- Treaty of Waitangi & Maori Affairs

The government's Closing the Gaps policy is in total disarray, ACT leader Richard Prebble says.

"A select committee report tabled today criticises the Ministry of Maori Development for the lack of any effective benchmarks for evaluating spending on this policy," Mr Prebble said.

"Last year, the government told us that Closing the Gaps was its cornerstone policy, and tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money is now being spent on it.

"The Prime Minister was personally in charge of the policy and chaired the special Cabinet committee.

"This year, the special committee has been disbanded, the Prime Minister has delegated the responsibility and not mentioned the policy once - and the policy's name has been changed.

"As the select committee has discovered, the money is still being spent but without any monitoring to see if the expenditure is having any beneficial effect.

"The select committee's concern is not that Maori don't have significant social issues, but that the government's solution seems to be to spend money rather than the more challenging approach of seeing if the money is actually being effective," Mr Prebble said.

ENDS

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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