National’s expensive quake ads clearly political
new-zealand-labour-party
Wed Mar 30 2011 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
National’s expensive quake ads clearly political
Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 12:55 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party
Clayton COSGROVE
Earthquake Recovery Spokesperson
MP for Waimakariri
30 March 2011
National’s expensive quake ads clearly political
The National Government claims it wants to keep politics out of the Canterbury quake recovery, but it is taking out large advertisements in newspapers around the country congratulating itself for what it is doing, says Labour’s Earthquake Recovery spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove.
“In the advertisement Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee says that before setting up the new Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority the Government had widespread discussions with the Christchurch City Council and other stakeholders, but we can’t find any evidence in Christchurch that anyone was consulted except for the council,” Clayton Cosgrove said.
“The real irony is that Gerry Brownlee is spending goodness knows how many thousands of dollars on so-called public information newspaper advertisements that are really just propaganda at the same as the Government is telling the Fire Service that it can’t have any extra funding to make up for shortfalls caused by its heroic work in Christchurch.
“It is denying funding to some of the quake heroes while spending taxpayer money congratulating itself,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “The only bit of public information in the advertisement is a website address.”
Clayton Cosgrove said Labour will continue to participate in the recovery programme, and give the CERA a decent go. “But we are worried that any time we raise issues on behalf of constituents, Gerry Brownlee accuses us of being political or impeding progress. He can’t have it both ways --- either he wants our input or he doesn’t.
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“Labour will participate in the new MPs’ forum, but we aren’t confident it will be more than a glorified briefing. We have had briefings since September but Gerry Brownlee hasn’t listened to anything we say, and he hasn’t kept his word on a number of occasions.
“We are also worried about the new unelected 20-member Community Forum he is setting up consisting of people who he hand-picks,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “Such a forum simply can’t pretend to represent more than 400,000 Cantabrians.
“What you have to do is to drill into the grass roots like the Waimakariri District Council has done and find out what people want. Gerry Brownlee needs to listen to what the community is saying, not to hear views filtered through 20 hand-picked forum members”
ENDS
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