Campaigner slams $72m violence prevention spend
A leading campaigner against family violence says the state has wasted $72.2m trying to prevent family and sexual harm over the last five years.
“It has failed.”
David White MNZM began advocating for solutions to New Zealand’s family violence problems when his daughter, Helen, was shot dead by her husband Greg Meads in 2009. White said that over the last five years the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence strategy in New Zealand, now under the Te Puna Aonui umbrella, had spent $72.2m.
“The rate of family and sexual violence continues unabated, with the numbers increasing and the levels of violence getting worse,” he said.
“[For the money spent] There’s absolutely no drop in the rate of family and sexual violence anywhere. No community has had any benefit from that spending.”
White said he believed the money had been wasted bouncing between Government departments rather than used at community level.
“Te Puna Aonui have the false belief that an ‘all of Government’ approach will create a programme that will reduce family violence and sexual violence within 25 years,” he said. “The exact opposite is what is needed. A ‘whole of community’ campaign.” White said that over the duration of Te Puna Aonui’s funding, 165 family violence murders have been committed.
“Te Puna Aonui have done nothing to save a single one. This waste of money and disregard for life has to stop,” he said.
He cited the Ruapeha Transformation Plan as a good example of a community coming together to address issues such as housing, education and health.
“Very simple, very basic, a group of locals ... they went and knocked on every single door in the community,” he said. “Take away the families’ pressure points, take the stress factors out. Take away the triggers. Go to the people that live there and miracles happen.”
The Waikato Times has also seen an email sent by White to the Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence. Karen Chhour.
He tells her the “whole of Government approach ... has delivered nothing where it counts”. White said the first target for reform should be the Te Aorerekura strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence.
“There has not been a single initiative that has entered any New Zealand community, any home, or any street, from this group that has had any effect at all on the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence,” he said.
In an email response to questions from the Waikato Times, Minister Chhour disputed the $72m figure as “incorrect” citing “a mislabelled table in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 Ministry of Justice Annual reports”.