Loan affair ‘exploited at expense of Maoris’

Press, 4 March 1987, Page 54

Loan affair ‘exploited at expense of Maoris’

PA Wellington The Maori committee of the Combined State Unions (C.S.U.) has said it is seriously concerned about the adverse effects that the Maori loan issue is having on the image and reputation of Maori people. The National Party’s spokesman on Maori Affairs, Mr Winston Peters, had exploited the loan issue for political advantage but the casualties of the affair are the Maori people and not the politicans, said the committee convener, Mr Raumoa Ormsby. .He said his committee Wlieved that "the persiw-

ent attacks” on the Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr Wetere, and the senior staff of the Maori Affairs Department displayed alarming insensitivity to the feeling of Maori people in the community. There was growing support for Maori selfdetermination, Mr Ormsby said, as Maori people were heartily sick of the criticism that was associated with being big recipients of social welfare benefits and of being at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale.

His committee applauded the initiative displayed by the Secretary for Maori Affairs, Dr

Tamati Reedy, and his staff. If their enthusiasm resulted in Treasury instructions being breached then remedial action could have been taken in a more sensitive manner and without inflaming racial tension.

Mr Ormsby said that over the years the Maori Affairs Department had done a great deal to improve . Maori socioeconomic standards and to foster greater independence. It was sad to see the New Zealand Party had attempted to capitalise on anti-Maori sentiment generated by the loan issue by Advocating the abolition |jf the department.