Opportunity lost as council slow on Maori plan

The chair of Auckland’s Independent Maori Statutory Board is disappointed Auckland Council isn’t holding up its end in funding Maori programmes.

An audit of council spending commissioned by the board by consultants PriceWaterhouseCoopers found significant under spending of the Maori budget, and over-reporting of what was spent on those projects that did go ahead.

David Taipari says the board fought hard to get funding in the long term plan and the Maori plan, and the fact it isn’t spent shows the council isn’t seeing the big picture.

"We’ve got a lot of young Maori out there, we’ve got an opportunity to bring them up to the same type of pay levels, the same type of work as non-Maori. If that occurs, based on a NZIER report we recently did, it could contribute to $1.8 billion more in the economy," he says.

David Taipari says there had been action on only about half of the recommendations arising from a similar audit in 2014.

DAVID TAIPARI INTERVIEW 

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