Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says 27 churches will benefit, as part a 10 million dollar in grants from the Covid-19 response and recovery plan.

"This kind of hyper-targeted spending can only be read as vote-buying. With a growing Debt Monster, now is not the time to fork out millions for church renos," New Zealand Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says:

"At least previous Provincial Growth Fund recipients have been taxpaying businesses. Churches, however, don't pay taxes," Houlbrooke said.

"This is technically a business-as-usual Government announcement but it reads like pure election politics.

In the week that postal voting opens for the election, this is the Government exploiting taxpayer money for the sake of its re-election campaign."

Former Massey University religious historian Dr Peter Lineham told Chris Lynch on NewstalkZB that he's never seen anything like it.

"I've never before seen government money directly used for renovations to church buildings."

Lineham says these churches do provide a lot of social care.

"They tend to be strongly connected to particular Pacific nations - effectively becoming a New Zealand-based village."

On it's Facebook page the Taxpayers' Union describes itself as "an independent activist group dedicated to being the voice for Kiwi taxpayers in the corridors of power."

The Taxpayers' Union founding documents with the Register of Incorporated Societies show a blend of Act Party and National Party people.

It was founded by David Farrar and Jordan Williams.

It claims to be politically independent and not aligned to, or intended to develop into a political party.

But becasue the Taxpayers' Union has ties to a number of right-wing figures from the New Zealand political scene it is regarded by many as a right-wing pressure group.

Source

• scoop.co.nz
• rnz.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• en.wikipedia.org
• newstalkzb.co.nz
• Image: thestandard.org.nz

They also must ensure the promotion of good governance "as we continue to provide vital basic services to our people in PNG."

Chairman of PNG Christian Leaders Alliance on HIV and AIDS, Cardinal Sir John Ribat made these comments when he presented the acquittal of K300,000 to the National Gaming Control Board (NGCB) community benefit fund this week.

"NGCB supported the first HIV Summit for Heads of Churches with K300,000, and as our commitment we are honouring it by documenting our acquittals report and presenting it back to our sponsor," he said.

An acquittal report is a financial report which includes an income and expense statement to show how a grant has been used.

The HIV Summit was launched in Port Moresby in March.

More than 20 heads of churches took part.

Ribat said at the time one of the great intentions for the HIV summit was to bring the heads of churches together so they could speak about the virus, which is a public health issue in Papua New Guinea.

He said the summit was the first of its kind and is critical for the PNG church leaders, as it would help them to strategise more proactively towards addressing sensitive issues relating to the spread of HIV.

The leaders will be able to "... further discuss HIV and other cross-cutting agendas, learn from the current HIV situation, identify existing gaps in the response and how we as a collective voice can address these issues within our networks," he said.

Source

• Asia Pacific Report
• Post Courier
• Sunday Chronicle
• Image: The National

Fr Maurice Thompson of the Samoa Catholic Church in Panania has written to parishioners saying he wants a response from Liberal MP Glenn Brookes.

This came after the L'au Samoa group applied for a grant of A$20,000 for a shadecloth at Panania's St Christopher's School.

"It is beyond me how a group . . . could apply for a grant on behalf of our parish and school community, our Catholic Samoan community, without any of us having any knowledge of it," Fr Thompson's letter states.

L'au Samoa's president, Alaalatoa Emani, said of the shadecloth application: "I didn't know anything about it until Brookes contacted me and asked if we could assist the school because the principal had approached him."

Mr Brookes said L'au Samoa became involved in applying for the shadecloth grant after Mr Brookes himself introduced the group to the school.

Because the school was not incorporated, it could not apply.

A series of taxpayer-funded grants worth A$58,000 to L'au Samoa has reportedly sparked "deep infighting" in Sydney's Samoan community.

One of the grants, for A$5000, given by Mr Brookes to L'au Samoa, was for a church in Panania to purchase "church equipment", which the congregation's leaders do not know about.

Members of L'au Samoa helped Mr Brookes's 2015 election campaign.

Sources

• Daily Telegraph (subscriber only)
• Image: Daily Telegraph