Community service groups' opposition to reforms unreasonable

23/3/95

Community Development Minister Roger Nicholls said today that organisations in the community services sector who had announced that they were going to fight him were wasting their time, their resources and their credibility.

"In one breath they pretend that I am muzzling them, and in the next they raucously demonstrate that I am not," Mr Nicholls said.

"At one moment they are crying poverty and in the next they say they have the time and the resources for an endless campaign against me.

"The community will be not be taken in by this sort of juvenile nonsense."

Mr Nicholls said that since he announced the reform of peak body funding he had not heard a word from anyone about how many peak bodies the sector should have, who they should be, or how much they should receive from the taxpayers without having to answer for the service they deliver in return.

"I will listen to any practical propositions they might like to put forward, but they will have to be factual and rational," he said.

"All this posturing about the right to speak is nonsense because I have never suggested that any individual or organisation does not have, or should not have, the right to criticise or agree with the Government, the Opposition, Parliament or anyone else.

"The campaigners' pretence that other people lose their rights if they do not receive fat government cheques is a smokescreen to hide their unwillingness to deal with the real issue of why they should receive government funds.

"It shows a lack of respect for the dignity of the individuals and organisations they claim to represent."

Media contact:   Hugh Ryan (09)  221 5468