Keith Melville

I put my Google search tool to work after reading Mawera Karetai’s somewhat dismissive letter last Wednesday Beacon (March 25) of D Dawson’s piece a few days earlier, pointing out specific projects where billions were misspent from the previous government’s Covid response and recovery fund.

I suggest Dr Karetai have a good talk with her Google friend because my Google engine – bless its hard working and honest soul – came up with different conclusions.

Dr Karetai says the $27 million spent on the Naenae pool was co-funded by the council involved. That is true but the amount she states was entirely the Government portion and according to my Google, it was fully funded from the Covid fund.

As for the $40 million she mentions, authorised by the Government for the Gisborne Olympic Pool in 2020, this was funded as a “shovel-ready project” (remember that term) by Crown Infrastructure Partners to stimulate the economy during Covid.

I think Dr Karetai is arguing these were worthy projects and should be above criticism.

They were worthy projects too, in my view, but the real question was: Were they the right things to be splashing money on at a time when Covid was rampant.

The Government seemed to be shutting down the economy on the one hand by restricting people and their movement and trying to keep it alive on the other hand, by printing money and throwing it at scores of projects, including wage and business subsidy schemes.

These costs and others linked to, but not directly related to Covid response and recovery, led to the $70 billion debt blow-out our country experienced and continues to battle since Labour was ejected from power in 2023. About half of that debt was not directly related to Covid.

As for the Government contribution to the Taranaki Green School that Dr Karetai says was not the $8 million mentioned by Mr Dawson, she might be partly right, but her Google is not telling her the full story.

My Google tells me the figure was $11.7 million and of that about $8 million was advanced as a Covid fund loan to the school as a shovel-ready project.

Green Party co-leader James Shaw, as a member of the Government at the time, apologised for approving the school’s funding saying that was “an error of judgment”, which went against the party’s funding policy for private schools.

I haven’t gone into all the points raised by Dr Karetai, but I think after the few issues raised by my Google, she should be challenging her Google friend to take off its rose-tinted glasses and stop giving her politically tainted answers.