Lotto ‘no help to small groups’

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 32

Lotto ‘no help to small groups’

PA Wellington Money from lotto will not benefit smaller groups in the community, says the Congregational Union of New Zealand.

“Smaller amateur sport-

ing or arts organisations are being fooled if they think they are going to see any of the money,” said the Rev. Peter Kennett, the convener of the church’s public questions committee, on Saturday.

“Cath Tizard said the other day that lotto would mean the end of the garage sale for voluntary organisations. But even with lotto there will be a shortage of funding in New Zealand,” he said. “When we met the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Tapsell, on January 30, he told us there had been a lot of money and effort expended in selling lotto to the Government.”

Mr Kennett thinks big business in New Zealand is pushing lotto to sponsor big sporting ventures overseas as a public relations exercise for New Zealand products.

“We must ask ourselves who will benefit from lotto. It won’t be the little people,” he said.

Mr Kennett said Mr Tapsell had given no undertaking to have a social impact report done to assess the effect of lotto in the community.

He said the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Mr Moore, was soon to publish a public opinion poll on the popularity of lotto. “We are ready to rubbish it. We have in our possession documents that prove the poll was done without the people surveyed being correctly informed,” Mr Kennett said.