$80,000 taxpayers dollars for meaningless waffle

The Government is giving $80,000 (labeled a "Community Development Scheme" grant) to the Methodist Mission for the following:

The key outcome for the project is the development of a greater sense of community within the inner city. The project’s goal is to harness this energy to empower residents and the broader community to self-identify and achieve their aspirations. 

Talk about an easy gig. For $80,0000 who wouldn't harness energy and be empowered to self-identify and achieve aspirations – whatever that means? It’s the sort of Government spending waffle that usually goes unnoticed, but adds up and needs to tackled.

Many of the grants under the Community Development Scheme are services the Ministry of Education or Health should be providing anyway. Instead of funding good quality core government services, these grants blur the line between community efforts and government funded services. It may even come at a cost to community involvement, fundraising and philanthropy.

One of the reasons New Zealand’s communities are poor is because they are over taxed. Only politicians could think that that ‘development’ means taxing more more so that they can play Santa Claus and give dollops of cash to groups offering these sorts of platitudes. If a community groups wants to tender for something a community needs good on them, but the Government should be funding specifics, not aspirations.

Below is a list of this year's grants (each for $80,000).