Welfare groups used by lottery organiser?

Press, 12 March 1983, Page 3

Welfare groups used by lottery organiser?

Some welfare agencies feel they are being used by Golden Kiwi organisers to help promote lotteries when they are getting a shrinking percentage of lottery profits, according to the president of ■ the New Zealand Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations, Mr J. B. Munro. “Golden Kiwi advertising makes much of the value of lottery profits for welfare work," Mr Munro said. “While the funds are welcome, their value should be put in perspective. They now represent a very small and diminishing proportion of the income needed by agencies providing services to the handicapped and underprivileged,” he said. “The Golden Kiwi’s biggest charity is now the Department and Minister of Internal Affairs. The lack of guidelines or policy statements from the New Zealand Lottery Board and its distribution committees is a matter of concern," he said. Mr Munro said that of the $l5 million allocated from lottery profits last year, welfare services got 13 per cent,

the aged 9 per cent, and medical and scientific research 6 per cent. The rest went to various groups mainly associated with the Internal Affairs Department, Youth, 2 per cent; Film Commission, 5 per cent; Arts Council, 11 per cent; the Lottery Board’s own general purposes committee, 45 per cent; and the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Highet, 8.5 per cent for distribution at his discretion. Mr Highet said that more money was being distributed from lottery profits to more organisations and individuals than ever before. The Welfare Services Distribution Committee received $500,000 from the Lottery Board for the year ended March. 1976, but in the present financial year, the same committee received $1,850,000, or an increase of 270 per cent, the Minister said. The other welfare committee, Welfare of the Aged, had had its grant doubled from $500,000 to $1 million in the same period.' “In talking percentages, Mr Munro blithely ignores

my deliberate policy since I have become the Minister, of extending the level of lottery profits,” Mr Highet said. “Distributions of less than $3 million a year in March, 1976, have been increased to nearly $l5 million for the last financial year. “This deliberate policy has allowed the Lottery Board to include new clients among its beneficiaries." ,