Call for council to stay away from trust grants | Auckland News | Local News in Auckland

The chair of a trust providing opportunities for young people to learn to sail, says the last thing charitable trusts need is for the council and local boards to be involved in administering grants.

Tony Stevenson heads the Lion Maritime Development Charitable Trust, which owns four famous Kiwi yachts - Lion NZ, Steinlager II, NZL38 and NZL60.

The trust runs a scheme - working alongside organisations such as the Foundation for Youth Development, YMCA and Spirit of NZ - to provide the boats used to teach youth leadership and decision-making skills by getting them out on the water. It receives money from a number of gaming trusts for its one-day, three-day and five-day courses, plus has corporate sponsorship. It generates income by chartering Lion NZ, the 23m Whitbread ocean race yacht formerly skippered by the late Sir Peter Blake.

Mr Stevenson says the problem with the gaming grant structure is that too many community trusts are applying to too many gaming trusts and there is too little "pie".

He is sceptical that problem gambling should mean a sinking lid on pokie machines.

"All that funding makes the wheels go round for a whole raft of things ... and, yes, it probably doesn't spin their wheels in south Auckland that the Philharmonic Orchestra gets a dollop, for example, but it goes to plenty of other really disadvantaged groups too. The drum that's beating all the time to cut back the pokies is just rubbish."

He says money earned from gaming machines is vital in the community, particularly with government cutbacks.

"There is a massive demand on gaming money ... and the Government is reducing funding to areas like medical equipment, for example, so now everyone tries to get it through gaming grants."

He agrees an adjustment to the current set-up should be looked at.

"There are two aspects: the trusts that apply for the funding, and the gaming trusts, like Lion, that distribute it. There are too many trusts going after a diminishing pie. "There are 26,000 charitable trusts in NZ ... but how many trusts do we need for each form of cancer, how many duplicate trusts do we need for every disadvantaged group?

"There are so many trusts competing for the same dollar and duplicating services ... and they are very competitive as well. They are like pukeko, charging across and bickering all day."

He says funds are wasted on duplicate infrastructure - including websites, administration and accountants. He believes the system could be run by eight to ten trusts.

"The criteria for distributing funds is already overseen by Internal Affairs and it's robust. There are checks and measures in place that make sure all that funding is going directly to the purposes intended."

He says his trust has absolute confidence in the gaming trusts they deal with.

"They are the ones that are suited to run it."

He fears Te Ururoa Flavell's gambling reduction bill could hurt the very people it claims it's trying to help.

"It's not a Maori problem, it's not even a NZ problem. There's a small percentage [of problem gamblers] totally disproportionate to the amount of money that goes back into the community. The Government gets about a third in tax, too. It's a massive amount of funding.

"All we need to do is cut the number of gaming trusts administering funds, to get more money into the community."

Lion Maritime Development Charitable Trust