Irate PM to rejig gaps policy

By EUGENE BINGHAM political reporter

The Government is rethinking its flagship Closing the Gaps policy because of perceptions that Maori receive preferential treatment.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and senior ministers will take a different approach to "selling" the programme, moving it from a "brown-white" issue to one of poverty.

She said last night that the Beehive had discerned a backlash in recent weeks and wanted the presentation of the gaps policy tweaked to ease concerns.

"There is something for every low-income New Zealander and we are focusing on the disparities overall," Helen Clark said on TVNZ's Face the Nation last night.

"We want to make it absolutely clear that lower-income New Zealand has an enormous amount to benefit from the policies of this Government, irrespective of colour of skin.

The shift in emphasis comes as the Government works to sooth concerns about a Treaty of Waitangi clause in its new health legislation that was this week the subject of a warning from Race Relations Conciliator Dr Rajen Prasad.

Last night, he welcomed the change, saying his office had heard complaints from people worried about preferential treatment. It was not just a "redneck" attitude, either.

"If it was, I would not be so concerned. Some very reasonable people are beginning to say it now," Dr Prasad said. "I am tremendously pleased that the Government is going to look at rebranding the gap reduction programme.

"I would suggest that it be done in a manner that makes those policies self-evident and places them alongside the other things we do for the inequalities in our society, so that people are very clear that if I am sick, I am going to be cared for."

Earlier yesterday, Helen Clark dismissed Dr Prasad's concerns, saying he should have got his facts right and realised that the Public Health and Disability Bill would be changed to make it clear it did not entitle Maori to preferential treatment.

She said the treaty clause was inserted to ensure Maori representation and participation in the health system - not to put Maori at the front of the waiting lists.

But Act MP Stephen Franks accused the Prime Minister of deception or ignorance.

"If healthcare is to continue to be rationed according to need and not according to inherited racial privilege, the clause has no purpose."

Herald Online feature: Closing the Gaps