Can we do this in NZ please
The Brisbane Times reports:
A national public health body has slammed the Newman government’s “gag order” on community organisations, saying it will strip service providers of one of their vital roles.
Queensland Health grant contracts now included clauses preventing non-government organisations advocating for state and federal legislative change, a spokesman for Minister Lawrence Springborg confirmed last night.
“We’re making it clear that we want to fund outcomes but not advocacy,” the spokesman said.
We badly need this in NZ. I’m all for funding of public health groups that provide actual public health services. But we spend tens of millions of dollars on groups that take the money and use it to lobby MPs on what the law should be. It is quite wrong that bureaucrats hand out money to lobby groups, to try and dictate policy to MPs.
There is nothing wrong with a taxpayer funded health group doing select committee submissions and the like. But some health groups are 95% taxpayer funded and as far as I can tell spend 95% of their resources on lobbying activities.
The Newman government raised concerns about advocacy when it announced in May that it was stripping about $2.5 million from the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities, which Queensland Health had previously funded to target HIV/AIDS prevention among gay men.
The group, which has a focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health, spoke up in favour of the former Bligh government’s civil union legislation and has recently criticised the Newman government’s plans to ban same-sex couples from having a child through surrogacy.
In an interview to mark his 100th day in office in July, Mr Newman argued the organisation had not improved HIV rates “and they had become an advocacy group [and] we’re not going to fund advocacy groups”.
That’s a good example. I personally favour same sex marriage and adoption. But I don’t think taxpayer funded NGOs should be campaigning for them. I’m not saying that has happened in NZ, just using the Queensland example.
A bill banning funding of NGOs that are greater than say 25% lobbying activity would be an excellent bill for a backbench National MP.