July 11, 2019 10:00am by David Farrar

Another broken promise

The Government will not upgrade the Office of Ethnic Communities to a ministry, despite a pre-election promise from Labour, and the national focus on issues facing ethnic communities following the terrorism attack in March.
Community advocates and organisations are disappointed at the decision, as they believed a dedicated ministry would add clout and visibility to the challenges and opportunities faced by ethnic communities.
Labour’s 2017 election manifesto included a commitment to upgrade the Office of Ethnic Communities – previously the Office of Ethnic Affairs – to the Ministry of Ethnic Communities.

It’s a broken promise, but a good one to break. Their manifesto commitment was an expensive way to achieve nothing.

We don’t need more ministries or agencies, we need less. Having it inside DIA is far better than a stand alone ministry with all the costs of a CEO, Deputy Secretaries, accounting systems etc etc.