Tourism funds row escalates
The auditor-general has been asked to probe the handling of $270 million of Government funding for tourism businesses.
The strategic assets protection programme (Stapp) has come under fire for the way 130 tourism operators were chosen out of the 308 who applied for support.
Lawyer Andrew Glenie is acting for at least 35 operators who missed out on grants of up to $500,000 and he said it was appropriate that the auditor-general, who oversaw the spending of public money, had a good look at how the Stapp package was handled.
‘‘This is a very large chunk of public funds and I think it is fair to say there is fairly widespread dissatisfaction with the way the scheme was carried out.
‘‘What we really want is independent scrutiny, and we want that to be done promptly, given the proximity of the general election, and that is relevant because elections are an all-change moment and you don’t know who the Government is going to be.’’
Seeking a judicial review of the decision-making process was still a last resort option if they did not get any engagement from the Tourism Recovery Ministers Group which selected the businesses to support.
Those decisions were based on advice from Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials who became so concerned about the process, they at one stage recommended abandoning it altogether.
Glenie said they wanted to know why money was given to large privately owned and publicly listed organisations [such as AJ Hackett Bungy and Tourism Holdings Ltd] that did not have to prove they had exhausted all private avenues of support.
Glenie said questions and requests for documents sent to ministers on September 2 were treated as Official Information Act requests which were not due for a response until Wednesday, and that timeframe could be extended. The group wanted to know how ministers selected successful applicants, how they decided how much money to give them, and why the Government was comfortable intervening in local markets by supporting some competing businesses but not others. If the inquiry uncovered ‘‘questionable’’ actions, Glenie said the group would like the Government to look at how things could be righted, such as through a targeted wage subsidy, or by offering another round of Stapp funding.