Race-based health funding or publicly funded grift?

Pasifika Medical Association seeks court order to block Herald story

The Pasifika Medical Association’s legal manoeuvring to stop the Herald from publishing further reporting about them says a lot about where this organisation’s priorities lie. When a publicly funded body rushes to the High Court to silence journalists rather than front up with straight answers, New Zealanders have every right to be concerned.

In my view, PMA’s behaviour fits a familiar pattern among groups that have grown comfortable on Government funding with very little scrutiny. For years, the association and its subsidiaries have benefited from massive Whānau Ora contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, supposedly aimed at improving both Māori and Pasifika health outcomes. When serious questions arise about how that money was used, they respond not with transparency but with lawyers.

The independent review commissioned by Te Puni Kōkiri found no evidence of deliberate misuse of funds, but that is hardly the same as a clean bill of health. The report left key questions unanswered about millions of dollars funnelled between related entities and even a $3 million loan to the Moana Pasifika rugby team. If a charity receiving over $180 million in public money cannot clearly trace every cent of it, that is a governance failure of the highest order.

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Pasifika Futures, the PMA-owned commissioning agency, insists the Whānau Ora funding was not used improperly. But the review itself admitted it was at least possible that some of the money may have been redirected, at least temporarily, to cover PMA’s cashflow. When taxpayer money is being shuffled around like a shell game between “charitable” entities and sports teams, something is seriously wrong.

Then there is the issue of conflicts of interest. Debbie Sorensen, the CEO of both PMA and Pasifika Futures, was also a director of Moana Pasifika Charitable Trust and Moana Pasifika Ltd, the very organisations receiving money under the Whānau Ora contract. Her daughter and son-in-law’s consultancy firm was also paid to deliver services through that same contract. The review found no technical breach, but that is hardly reassuring. A system that relies on self-reporting and internal registers to police family contracts and overlapping roles is built to fail.

This is the core problem with race-based funding models like Whānau Ora. They may be framed as empowering “by Pacific, for Pacific” or “by Māori, for Māori”, but in practice they often entrench a small network of well-connected insiders who benefit most. The intended recipients, ordinary families and communities, are left trusting that the system is working for them. And when the accountability mechanisms are weak, it is the taxpayers who lose.

The NZ Herald highlighted conflicts of interest in July.

Health funding should be based on need, not ethnicity. There is nothing compassionate or progressive about funnelling millions into organisations that operate behind closed doors, where personal relationships blur the line between public service and private gain. The moment these groups start suing the media to stop scrutiny, the public should be asking why.

PMA’s push to silence the Herald is not about protecting their own reputation. If that reputation cannot withstand a few hard questions, maybe it is time the Government stopped writing blank cheques and started demanding real accountability from these grifting pricks.