Estimates Debate — Vote Community and Voluntary Sector

I call the honourable member Katherine Rich. Is the member speaking on Vote Social Development?

Yes, and on Vote Community and Voluntary Sector.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would like to clarify that. On the schedule we have the first vote under the Hon Steve Maharey as Vote Community and Voluntary Sector, and Katherine Rich will take a call on that. We will have other speakers later on taking calls on the fourth vote under that Minister, Vote Social Development. I understand that the first vote under that Minister, on the schedule as presented to us and tabled, is Vote Community and Voluntary Sector.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have it down here that there is a separate vote for Vote Social Development, but I do have Vote Community and Voluntary Sector, Vote Employment, and Vote Housing being taken together. Can we get this cleared up?

We do not mind the Chairperson calling Vote Social Development first, but on the schedule presented to us that is the fourth vote under the Hon Steve Maharey. If the Chairperson wants to take Vote Social Development before the other three, we will not object to it.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): We will proceed with Vote Community and Voluntary Sector.

What a mess this portfolio is—what an absolute shambles. We have seen some major community programmes—some organisations that did good community work throughout New Zealand—reduced to an absolute shambles. I am referring to the Community Employment Group and the various programmes and activities that that organisation carries out within New Zealand. New Zealanders were pretty proud of that group in 1999. At that time it was run by a future Labour Cabinet Minister, Parekura Horomia, and undertook a wide range of community projects up and down the country that were good, basic, common-sense projects. But Labour came in and wanted to put in place its far-flung, bizarre programmes and partnerships, and about eight different programmes later, we now have just a remnant of what was a very well-run section of Government.

We have seen in the estimates process that there will be no change in the way community employment is delivered. We have seen vague objectives, loose applications of guidelines—that is, if the guidelines for grant applications have been followed at all—and some results that cannot be described in any better terms than “dubious” and “waste of money”.

I am referring to projects like the now infamous hip hop tour. As my colleagues on this side of the Chamber know, given the $26,000 that was spent on that tour, our concern is not about the music. Members on this side have nothing against hip hop as a musical genre, but some community members are asking whether taxpayers should be asked to spend good money on researching how hip hop came to New Zealand—somehow, we are supposed to think, via Paris, Samoa, and Hawaii. That is where the applicants said they chilled out and had a very relaxing time. Most people concluded that it was not a good way to spend taxpayers’ money, except for the Minister and the then general manager, who went on National Radio and said he thought that it was a pretty good way. We on this side of the Chamber totally disagree.

Some of the reports that have been released lately look at the way guidelines have not been applied when it comes to grant applications, and the way some groups barely look at the guidelines at all before they are handed taxpayers’ money. We think the Community Employment Group needs to get back to basics—the good, common-sense approach to community development—and to take out what is fast becoming a lot of rhetoric and garbage spoken about that area.

A lot of the Minister’s speeches go something like: “Blah, blah, social capability; blah, blah, social capacity building; blah, blah, whole of Government; blah, blah, joined-up Government; blah, blah, interconnectedness.” I can basically rewrite some of his speeches myself. I thought: “Gee, this social capability term is very interesting. I’ll look it up.” Treasury was very helpful, so here is the definition: the term “social capability” is defined as “society’s capacity for collective action in a variety of spheres, including non-market and market, involving voluntary interactions as well as the coercive powers of the state.”

Well, that clears things up. I feel a lot happier. If one feels like Manuel of Fawlty Towers in saying: “¿Qué?”, one is not alone. And that is where a lot of New Zealanders are at the moment—putting their heads to one side and asking what this is all about. I do not think New Zealanders want to talk about such vague academic concepts. They do not want issues like community development to be an academic subject. I think they do want to get back to some basics, and do want this particular organisation to fund programmes that are actually going to make a difference.

We are not talking about researching hip hop tours. We are not talking about sending people off shore who did not know how to research, and freely admitted they knew nothing about hip hop before they went. We are not talking about craft trips to Melbourne. New Zealanders do not fairly expect that we will use taxpayers’ funding to fund projects of a dubious quality, particularly when one looks up and down the country and sees hard-working community organisations that find it really difficult to raise funds and provide some of the basic services that New Zealanders hold dear, like Plunket or the Women’s Refuge. There are many organisations that were absolutely gobsmacked when they saw the long list of projects and programmes that had been funded through that particular organisation.

We want more than a shake-up, and we were not made to feel confident in dealing with this particular part of the Budget when various officials came before the select committee. We felt very concerned that not only had we seen $21 million go into a black hole last year but we had the concern that it would happen again, because the guidelines have not changed. We are still seeing a very loose application of guidelines.

A lot of money is being spent in areas where most Kiwis would really question the reason for some of that expenditure. So we have to get out of some of those kinds of strange projects that make New Zealanders just shake their heads. We have to ensure that if taxpayers’ money is going to be spent, it is going to be spent well and spent on things that actually make a difference.

One of my favourite Community Employment Group projects, in relation to which I have just received an answer to a parliamentary question today, will interest people. I asked about a project that received funding to look at the best way for the people of a particular marae to communicate with one another. The answer came back that almost $2,000 had been spent on the development of a website. I said that was great, and asked where the website was. I asked them to give me the proof that there was a website. The Community Employment Group came back and said that it was all right and I was not to worry about it, because the field worker had sighted the website so it was in existence. But I said no. Being a trusty Opposition member, I wanted to see the proof. Here it is. This is a printout of a website—one page—and the information on it states: “Ngāti Kere site coming soon.” That is the website; that is what we got for $2,000.

When it comes to serious investment in Māori leadership, Māori land partnerships, or the various programmes that that Minister has imposed on the Community Employment Group—as a result of ideology as opposed to the desire to allow the organisation to continue its work—I think if that group could get back to some of the basics over the coming year, then we would see some improvement. This is not about throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is about tightening some of the guidelines so that some of the taxpayers’ money being spent in this area is, first, going into projects that do make a difference; second, going into projects without such bizarre and vague objectives that nobody can really understand what they are anyway; and third, going into projects that are described in terms that actually mean something.

I think we need to move away from making this community and voluntary sector an academic subject, and move back into something that communities can understand and implement. This vote is not supposed to be a slush fund for all and sundry. It is supposed to fund a programme that can assist communities to develop locally. By that, I mean various projects that have worked in the past. One could look at going to Ranfurly to see the work that has been done there on its art deco project, or look at the Otago rail trail project. They are good, solid, thoughtful community development projects, not hip hop tours to Hawaii whereby someone gets $26,000 to go and “chill out” at the taxpayers’ expense.

When the Minister takes a call he might like to tell us whether those applicants from the Social Entrepreneur Fund will pay back their grant. We have also seen that particular fund go by the way, thankfully. Although the Minister says fund applicants are all community champions and examples of human innovation, a lot of other members on the Government side of the Chamber obviously agreed with members on this side, which is why we have seen that entire project canned as a result of concerns raised by the Opposition. We need to get better accountability and we need to ensure that money is spent wisely and in areas that will really make a difference to local communities.

I rise to say that I agree with almost everything that the member who has just sat down said. In fact, I cannot think of anything she has said today that I did not agree with.

💬 Katherine Rich: The Social Entrepreneur Fund is crap?

No, I think the Social Entrepreneur Fund is a very sound idea, and I will come back to that. The member did not actually use the bovine excreta phrase when she was on her feet, but we will come back to that in a moment.

I should say that the member is attracting a great deal of interest from me. I have a vast collection of music, and I am very impressed with the fact that the member has just purchased the Guns N’ Roses compilation and has identified “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as her favourite song. I think that is a real sign that she is a little bit more colourful than we had thought up until now. It was interesting to hear. “Welcome to the Jungle” happens to be my favourite Guns N’ Roses song, and I welcome the member to this particular jungle.

I go back to my earlier point that I agree with what the member has said. The community and voluntary sector is an area of Government spending that I know the member has a strong personal interest in. She has been able, through very close connections to people close to her, to follow its development over the last decade and a half. As a result she is well aware that the Community Employment Group has done a great number of things that members right around this Chamber would applaud. They have things going on in their electorates right now that they want to hang on to. They have mayors who are very keen for this kind of funding to carry on, and people throughout the networks in their communities who want to see that work carry on. In the region I come from and the region of Horowhenua, which the excellent member for Otaki comes from, there has been Community Employment Group work around floods, for example, over the last little while. So this is a group that has its finger on the pulse of the community. For a long time it has been close to the community and has done a lot of things that we want to see it do.

However, the member raised a very important point—that groups like this, of course, are born out of very high levels of unemployment. They deal with people who are individually disadvantaged in communities that are disadvantaged. They have been working to try to ensure that they provide a platform for those individuals and communities to expand their possibilities in enterprise, so that they can create more opportunities for employment. We happen to be in an environment, as the member intimated, that is very different from the way it was when this group began. In other words, we have an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent. It is the fourth lowest in the OECD. We have more people employed than ever before in the history of this country. We have rising wages. I recently drove through the community of the excellent member for Wairarapa, Ms Beyer, who has led development in the Wairarapa over the last little while. I looked at one small town after the other where there were local coffee bars and other small businesses starting up. It was very colourful. There were flowers along the street in places like Carterton, making the place look extremely attractive. It has been very much the vision of Georgina Beyer over the years to have a thriving community building on its wood, tourism, trying to get small businesses together, and all those kinds of things. There is also the wine industry and horticulture. She has been tireless in promoting that kind of vision, and we can see it happening.

As a result of this outstanding change in fortune, we are looking at the Community Employment Group through a different lens. We are asking what the role is of a group dealing with disadvantaged communities and individuals in the 21st century, against this very optimistic backdrop brought about by the Labour-led Government and its outstanding MPs. I know that the member opposite was reflecting on that. As an Opposition member, she is well aware that she is looking at a Government that is doing incredibly well. The country is on a roll, and she is reflecting to herself on whether this organisation, which has been very successful in the past, should carry on in its present form.

In my view, the answer is probably not, which is why last year, in November, I asked it to look at its grant system, why I asked it to review itself, and why, in the near future, we will be talking about the future of the Community Employment Group. We need to be talking about what it does as a core function being perhaps done in a different kind of form. That is where I think we are going.

In raising those points today the member demonstrates, as usual, the fact that she is a very able Opposition member, and that she has been doing some very good work in thinking about something that her and her family have been close to for some time. She is affirming the group’s core function of working with disadvantaged communities. She is acknowledging that, under Labour, there are fewer of them, because we are doing so well. She is acknowledging that individuals who might be served by the Community Employment Group are fewer in number, because they are now gainfully employed and living exciting lives throughout the country. She is saying that, given the success of the Government, we are now in a situation where we need to rethink the form of that organisation. I am saying I agree with her. I think we are as one on this, and can work together to have the function provided in a way that does serve New Zealanders in the 21st century, rather than have the group carry on exactly as it is. I agree with her entirely, and we will do that.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Employment