Half Warrior compo. to Govt departments

Press, 18 December 1986, Page 40

Half Warrior compo. to Govt departments

PA Wellington Almost $7 million of the Rainbow Warrior settlement money was paid in compensation to Government departments, a Parliamentary Select Committee has been told. The Finance and Expenditure Committee received Treasury figures showing $6.95 of the $13.16 million received from the French was paid to departments. The money was part of a United Nations negotiated settlement which also secured the release into French custody of two French agents involved in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour last year.

The figures provided a complete breakdown of how the money was spent. I According to a written answer to Opposition questions, a Cabinet minute had noted that the departmental , compensation money was disbursed

on the understanding it was not to be specifically identified in departmental accounts but listed simply as “miscellaneous revenue”.

However, the Secretary to the Treasury, Dr Graham Scott, supplied to the committtee a breakdown of how much departments received.

He said the Police received $3 million, Defence $1.4 million, Foreign Affairs $1.7 million, Justice $600,000, the D.S.I.R. $60,000, the Crown Law Office $20,000, and the Security Intelligence Service $170,000.

In addition to the departmental compensation, listed in the Supplementary Estimates as "community, constitutional and cultural operating costs,” the Auckland Harbour Board received $52,700 and a further $2OOO was paid for uninsured effects and documents left on board the vessel.

The written figures also provided a breakdown of the grants given to special projects from the compensation fund. These figures have already been announced.

Some $4.21 million went to establish a trust fund for the protection of the environment and the peaceful development of the South Pacific.

A permanent body for peace and disarmament education was set up with $500,000, another $125,000 funded a study into the implications of nuclear war, $300,000 went to an Anglo-Irish trust fund, $500,000 to the Tuvalu Trust Fund, $500,000 to the Polynesian Trust Fund, $25,000 to the Rarotonga seismological facility, $B5OO towards a nuclear-free New Zealand pamphlet and $350,000 towards a replacement for the Wellington police launch Lady Elizabeth 11.