PM wines and dines Maori

By AUDREY YOUNG political editor

Ministers have spent more than $400,000 of taxpayers' money holding regional hui and hosting dinners for Maori in the past two years, including a $90-a-head dinner in Northland, as part of what critics call a wider exercise to buy votes.

The Northland dinner in April last year was for 240 people (salmon or beef with vegetables and chocolate truffles) and compared with the average cost of about $50 a head for all the dinners. The cheapest was in Wanganui for 412 people at $16.30 a head.

The Government has hosted 12 hui in different parts of the country - the latest in Nelson this week.

They are invariably led by Prime Minister Helen Clark. Many other ministers are usually present and hold workshops at the hui.

National MP Murray McCully says the Government is paying for dinners on the basis of ethnicity.

"The Prime Minister doesn't go off and host dinners for the Chamber of Commerce, or local government or local sports organisations or anyone else."

Mr McCully, who obtained the data under the Official Information Act, said the Northland dinner was "lavish".

"I see this as the vote harvesting end of a much larger programme of funding Maori initiatives purely on the basis of ethnicity. We have a large prime ministerial-led exercise to consolidate the electoral returns as well as to generate further requests for cash.

"It is vote-buying."

Defenders of the hui say they are a hugely successful part of the Government's attempt to connect with Maori at "the flaxroots".

But Mr McCully warned that after Parliament resumes on June 10, he would be targeting Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia over ethnically based spending, including more than $50 million in so-called "capacity building" grants.

"There are now a number of electoral slush funds working in Maoridom to buy Maori votes. Across a whole raft of activities in the community, there are Maori groups getting so-called capacity building grants that have got nothing to do with building capacity at all and for which they qualify purely on the grounds of ethnicity," Mr McCully said.

"You end up with youth groups, sports groups, family groups and senior citizens' groups now qualifying for funding that they would be denied through the normal Machinery of Government and which would be denied any non-Maori group for the same purpose."

He added: "Mr Horomia had better get used to coming to Parliament at question time."

Helen Clark was said to be tramping yesterday and was unavailable and Mr Horomia could not be contacted.

But Leith Comer, the chief executive of the Maori development ministry, Te Puni Kokiri, said the hui were "tremendously successful".

"Government are really making an effort to connect properly with Maori. Maori are appreciating the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister and ministers and I'm sure vice-versa.

"Despite people questioning the costs, the arrangements, I think they have been an excellent example of good Government-Maori relations."

Mr Comer was not sure whether they would continue, however, because the first phase had covered most areas.