Government continuing corporate welfare slush fund

The Taxpayers’ Union is slamming the Government’s decision to continue MBIE’s Endeavour Fund without narrowing the funding criteria to exclude areas where there is clear private benefit and incentive to invest in research and development.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“This is the same fund that previously spent $1 million for research into reducing the sound of ‘scraping chairs, running upstairs and high heels on hard floors’ and another million on work to increase the shelf life of seafood.

“There are countless examples of the Endeavour Fund handing out money for research that simply pile all of the risk onto taxpayers while the benefits accrue to corporate elites.

“We have already seen the kind of nonsense funded through Marsden grants and the Health Research Council – it’s time the government focused all science funding on those areas that cannot attract private investment and that deliver tangible benefits to all New Zealanders, not just the wealthy few.”