Report ‘quite proper’

Press, 2 October 1987, Page 4

Report ‘quite proper’

The Acting Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr Tapsell, said the report had been a confidential but quite proper progress study by the Mana sub-committee to the Minister. “As far as I am aware, it is so recent that Mr Wetere has not seen it yet,” Mr Tapsell said.

The Mana scheme had been developed as one means of funding a better and more positive answer to the negative programmes that had been “dished out” to Maoris for

years. It aimed to lift Maoris from abject dependency to self-suffi-ciency and to help them obtain experience in business management. No-one should be surprised that some problems had shown up, Mr Tapsell said. Many Maoris were poorly educated; very few had had an opportunity to develope business or management skills; pitifully few had had access to capital to develop economic enterprises of their own. Nothing previoiusly

had worked, he said. Mana had helped about 400 enterprises to get started and had helped provide more than 500 jobs.

The report pointed out some problems, Mr Tapsell said, but compared with what Mana had already achieved, these problems were not insuperable. The report proposed a range of changes which might be made, and they would be considered by the Minister in due course.