The blind fighting the blind over Christmas fundraiser

The Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind is unhappy a Christmas lottery is being run by Queensland's Royal Blind Foundation (RBF) in New Zealand.
"We want the public to understand that the RBF lottery is of no benefit to Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind members," chief executive Paula Daye said.

"We are not happy about this and the confusion that it is causing members and our donors."

Mrs Daye said the Queensland foundation's chief executive had phoned to tell her what was happening.

"The trouble was by the time he told me it was a fait accompli - there was nothing I could do about it.

"I conveyed to him how unhappy I was about it, but there was nothing I could do. It was already happening. It was already here.

"We [blind foundations] are all working very hard for blind people, and we're all facing different degrees of competition for funding out of our Governments, and I had always been of the belief that there was an unwritten rule between us that we didn't compete with each other.

"That's what I've always understood because I enjoy such a positive relationship with my colleagues in Australia," Mrs Daye said.

"It costs $21 million to provide services to our 11,500 blind, deafblind and vision-impaired members, and just one-third of that comes from Government sources.

"We must constantly fundraise and keep our name before the public."

The NZ foundation did not fundraise in Australia, believing this would be an invasion into areas served by Australian blindness organisations, Mrs Daye said.

The RBF was an Australian charity based in Queensland and in no way connected with the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.

The NZ foundation did not endorse, support or receive any funding from the Queensland lottery.

- NZPA