Winston fires and misses

Tariana Turia says:

Winston Peters has once again demonstrated his love for political theatre by creating a great melodrama out of a series of unproven facts said Tariana Turia following question-time today.

Mr Peters has cast doubt on the value of Whanau Ora – speculating about the spending of “$174 million of hard-earned taxpayers’ money-some of which is in this audit here-when many providers are using it to pork-barrel, and rort, and commit fraud”.

“Problem is – and it’s a problem for Mr Peters – the organisation he referred to in the House today has never received any funding from Te Puni Kokiri; it is not part of a Whanau Ora Collective – and in actual fact in the audit he referred to there was no mention of Whanau Ora.

“Mr Peters makes allegations at his whim about Whanau Ora – and deserves to be challenged about the veracity of these claims. Sadly his attempts to undermine Whanau Ora will not work because there is no truth in these claims.

This is very lazy work by Peters. He saw some report about a Women’s Refuge having dodgy accounts. But instead of actually finding out where does it get its funding, he just assumes it is a funded via Whanau Ora and alleges it is as that is his pet target.

A modicum of research would have meant that Peters could have avoided this. It’s not hard. Read the annual report. Ask some written questions. Grand-standing is no substitute.