Gumboot Friday still on
Health Ministry’s offer of help rejected — ‘We are not govt contractors,’ says King
Comedian-turned-mental health campaigner Mike King is vowing to press on with his Gumboot Friday charity appeal despite the twin obstacles of the Covid-19 outbreak and an ongoing cold war with the Ministry of Health.
King said he was committed to still holding his annual Gumboot Friday today, but its aim and message has been tempered by recent events and would take place largely on Facebook, focusing on “the message this year, not money”.
“It would be poor form on our part to emotionally blackmail people to give at the moment. Donate responsibly, you can do it online, but there are other ways to help. Our focus is now on connecting with kids,” he said.
King, once a volatile entertainer, reinvented himself over the past decade to become a high-profile campaigner against suicide.
In February last year his campaigning saw him named Kiwibank’s “New Zealander of the Year”, but only months later he ran into a storm of official criticism — driven largely by ethics, privacy and safety concerns — over plans to collect and study hundreds of suicide notes.
His Gumboot Fund — an initiative to pay for counselling services on demand for teens — made headlines in October after it exhausted its annual budget in months, sparking concerns from mental-health providers that vulnerable young people were having expectations raised then dashed.
A November 8 email from Deputy Director-General of Health Robyn Shearer to King, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, laid out in formal language the ministry’s position on whether it would bail out the fund.
“We take seriously the need for due diligence and the need for appropriate processes to be followed when it comes to the use of public funds,” she said.
The letter ended with an invitation “to meet with you and work together”.
King this week said he had not followed up on the offer as there was “no point in talking”.
A week before that letter was sent — shortly after news broke the Gumboot Fund had exhausted its capacity — King and Shearer were involved in an email exchange.
“While the ministry cannot step in and fund this initiative I am happy to talk with you on how this situation could be managed . . . with some new boundaries and extra limitations,” Shearer said.
Minutes later, King replied: “Thank you for outlining the [ministry’s] position of no funding for the Gumboot Friday initiative . . . I’d like to thank you for your very generous offer to help us ‘ manage the situation’ and your advice on next steps, but we’ll be fine managing the situation on our own.”
King told the Herald this week the exchange had been frustrating. “It’s fair to say I was upset — but it really galvanised to me the reason we don’t ask for government funding. We’re not government contractors,” he said.
A briefing prepared by the ministry in February reiterated the lack of official involvement in King’s activities: “The Key to Life trust is now promoting the fundraising campaign for Gumboot Friday 2020, which will take place on 3 April 2020. The ministry has not been asked to be involved. We will be reaching out to the Key to Life Trust again to offer to assist them in ensuring sustainability of the fund and the safety and care for young people.”
Questions to the Ministry of Health this week were answered with a statement, confirming the November 8 letter was the last contact with King and his trust.
New Zealand Association of Counsellors president Christine Macfarlane said the Gumboot Fund lacked processes and oversight seen in other publicly funded counselling initiatives, but King deserved some credit.
“I do applaud Mike for his passion and his ability to keep doing this in the face of so much criticism.”