Pubdate: Thu, 31 Oct 2002
Source: New Zealand Press Association (New Zealand Wire)
Copyright: 2002 New Zealand Press Association
Author: New Zealand Press Association

PETERS COMPLAINS ABOUT GREENS' 'POT CO-ORDINATOR'

New Zealand First has complained about the Green Party's use of taxpayer 
money to employ a cannabis law reform co-ordinator.

However, Parliamentary Services, which administers MPs' budgets, said the 
Green Party was entitled to use its out-of-Parliament budget in this way.

A spokeswoman for the service said that it was in fact a sensible use of 
the money because the party was an issues-based party of list MPs rather 
than constituency MPs.

The budget was used to support the work of MPs outside Parliament.

It was generally used by electorate MPs for offices and staff to answer 
constituents' queries.

Parties such as ACT and the Greens made better use of the money by 
employing people to handle issues, for instance by assessing attitudes to 
research.

Mr Peters today issued a statement which said the Greens were using 
taxpayer money to promote the use of cannabis.

"This is a serious misuse of public money. Why should taxpayers' money be 
spent promoting the use of an illegal drug?

"The Greens want immediate legislation to cover possession of cannabis for 
personal use and appear to also want taxpayers to fund their campaign.

"New Zealanders are already paying the salary of a marijuana-promoting MP. 
Surely that is more than enough of an outlay on this nonsense," Mr Peters said.

However, the Greens denied the co-ordinator would be promoting drug use.

A spokesman said the person would be looking at drug law reform "in the 
same way they could be promoting or co-ordinating and researching work on 
any other aspect of legislation".

"The job would be identifying and communicating with key sector groups that 
have an interest in cannabis policy and then working towards solutions to 
the issues raised by drug law reform.

"It's no more an abuse of taxpayers' money then whatever uses Mr Peters 
makes of exactly the same budget.

"There is nothing in the rules governing the use of that budget that says 
we can't do this."

The spokesman said the Greens were looking for up to six other policy 
co-ordinators including in the areas of safe food, ground-based pest 
control, sustainable agriculture, and social and economic justice.
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