Turia defends under fire scheme after Mob links

Tariana Turia

Whanau Ora minister Tariana Turia has defended the Whanau Ora scheme after revelations it provided funding to a trust with links to the Mongrel Mob now under investigation over the misappropriation of funds.

Four Dunedin men have been charged with dishonestly converting $20,000 of money from the We Against Violence trust. The trust had received $45,000 under the Whanau Ora social services delivery programme as well as about $2000 for a community garden from Te Puni Kokiri.

Asked if she was concerned about funding going to Mongrel Mob links, Mrs Turia said Whanau Ora aimed to help vulnerable families, whoever they were.

She would be disappointed if Whanau Ora funding was involved in any fraud, but there was as yet no proof of that and she believed the money had gone to the families it was intended for.

She had asked her officials to check the records "and they feel everything they have looked at shows the money was used for the proper purposes".

There was stringent criteria to get the funding and its use was monitored to ensure accountability.

"But we've been really clear that Whanau Ora is always going to have risk attached to it."

The trust is one of Inland Revenue's approved recipients and is understood to have received public funding from other sources, including the Southern District Health Board. A spokesman said he could not comment because of the court action.

The news renewed NZ First leader Winston Peters' criticisms of the programme, which he said yesterday was "a continuing waste of public money" which would not deliver what Maori needed.

In Parliament yesterday he also questioned deputy Prime Minister Bill English about government funding being used for "dodgy, lucrative ventures that the Mon-grel Mob are, rubbishingly, associated with."

Mr English said the Government had funding contracts with thousands of organisations and occasionally one or two of those might break the law and were dealt with accordingly.

He said the Government continued to support the Whanau Ora scheme.

"It is starting to show some signs of success."

The scheme was set by Ms Turia under the confidence and supply agreement with National and was given $134 million over four years.

Mr Peters first attacked it soon after returning to Parliament in 2011 over a $6000 grant for what he described as "a family reunion" - one of about 200 grants handed out under the Whanau Integration, Innovation and Engagement Fund.

Yesterday Mrs Turia rubbished Mr Peters' criticism, saying he had first attacked it for funding a family he considered well-off and was now attacking it for funding vulnerable families "so we can't win".