Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader

6 September 2013

Transfield Services Exposed But Not Exonerated

The adverse publicity that Transfield Services has received this week due to questions first raised in Parliament by New Zealand First has forced Transfield to come clean and honour their contractual obligations to their New Zealand businesses and workers.

Transfield Services today announced that it will make outstanding payment to its New Zealand subcontractors within the next two business days.

Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says there is no excuse for this behaviour from Transfield.

“This is not what they have been telling the subcontractors over the past few months – in fact, they were saying that the earliest they would be paid for the work already completed would be in October and that the seriously late payment was due to a computer glitch.

“They have not been exonerated in any way by now announcing that they will make the outstanding payments by early next week.

“Transfield Services have been exposed for the incredible financial stress that they have placed these New Zealand companies under – work was completed months ago and they’re now promising to pay within two business days.

“However another real issue is what was the Government doing or not doing about it? On Wednesday when it was raised with the Minister, she did not know about it.

“This despite the UFB being the much repeated boast of the Government being in control of economic events.

“This is taxpayer money, on a Government directed project, and yet the Minister and her Government have had the effrontery on Thursday morning to claim that this was a market issue and contractors should beware of who they deal with.

“If that’s true, what was an Australian firm doing in this country, involved in a contract which New Zealand businesses could do themselves?

“The Government should send a clear signal that we won’t put up with this “dingoistic” behaviour,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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