Coastguard gets small Govt grant

Press, 17 February 1984, Page 4

Coastguard gets small Govt grant

PA Wellington The Government has given the New Zealand Coastguard a $20,000 grant, $230,000 less than the voluntary organisation wanted.

The Minister of Transport, Mr Gair, said yesterday that the grant was “all the money he could find from his vote at this stage.” The Ministry was unable to find the $250,000 sought.

Mr Gair said that the grant had been approved without making any future funding commitment.

The money would be a useful way of meeting the Coastguard’s problems, “particularly relating to small boats.” Mr Gair said he was also exploring ways of giving the coastguard long-term support. He said he would approach the Ministers of Police, Internal Affairs and, possibly, Defence to see what support other Government departments could offer the Coastguard.

He would try to get support from the insurance industry also.

Last month the president of the Coastguard Federation, Mr Allan Daines, said it wanted $250,000 to help with the expenses of New Zealand’s 35 coastguard units.

He said that last year the coastguard, saved craft worth $9.3 million and used fuel costing $51,770, of which only 10 per cent was reimbursed by the police for urgent work in “life or death” situations. Providing the services needed total coastguard assets of $l.l million. “The $250,000 we seek is not even 10 per cent of the value of savings in Whakatane alone last year,” Mr Daines said. “It is not even 0.1 per cent of the savings in both property and lives throughout New Zealand.” Mr Gair said the figure of $250,000 had been mentioned by the Coastguard. “There is no question of my being able to find anything like that sum of money, or the Government’s finding it, and I do not believe that at any stage there was any impression in their minds that I could do that,” he said.