Maharey Cannot Fight The Facts

ACT New Zealand Housing Spokesman Dr Muriel Newman today responded to Housing Minister Steve Maharey's underhanded attack on her scrutiny of Labour's race-based housing assistance programmes.

"During Question Time today, I asked the Prime Minister `in light of her announcement that assistance should be based on need not race, can she confirm that her Government has given millions of dollars of taxpayers' money in non-repayable grants of up to $50,000 to repair private houses that have been allowed to run down and, if so, is she saying that it is just coincidence that in 2002, 100 percent of these grants were given to Maori households'.

"This question was based on previous Housing Minister Mark Gosche's official response to written Parliamentary Question 5531 on May 13 2002, regarding how many of these suspensory housing loans infrastructure development costs were to homeowners of European ethnicity. The Minister's answer was that `all of these households who received such assistance as at April 30 2002 identified themselves as being Maori'.

"Mr Maharey's attack today is simply an effort to disguise the fact that Labour's social assistance policies have been targeted at Maori - based on ethnicity, not need.

"The Government has been exposed. It is now scurrying to cover its tracks and to spin its way out of it in a despicable, underhanded manner," Dr Newman said.

© Scoop Media