Gillon's Fire Service Budget claim Is Wrong

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Jack Elder, has rejected claims by Alliance MP, Grant Gillon, about planned spending by the Fire Service. Mr Gillon said he has a "leaked" copy of the Fire Service's budget for 1999-2000.

"The figures quoted by Mr Gillon bear no relation to the budget submitted to me by the Fire Service on April 30," Mr Elder said. "Mr Gillon appears to have been leaked some management working papers from a planning conference.

"They were a first draft, or 'wish list', of managers' bids for their spending programmes and the Fire Service then spent the next day changing and reconciling them.

"They don't bear any resemblance to the final result."

Mr Elder also attacked Mr Gillon for criticising the commission's legal bills.

"The public needs to be reminded that the Commission had to engage lawyers to defend itself against some quite extraordinary and in some cases criminal allegations from Mr Gillon and other opposition members of the select committee," Mr Elder said. "No wrong doing was established.

"Mr Gillon would do everyone a favour if he checked his facts first before rushing into print."