Jones accused of misleading Parliament over project
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has been accused of misleading Parliament over his involvement with Manea Footsteps of Kupe, the project in which he declared a conflict of interest.
Jones does not think he has done so, but will take advice on whether he needs to correct answers to parliamentary written questions.
Act leader David Seymour wrote to Speaker Trevor Mallard asking him to look at whether Jones had breached parliamentary privilege.
“It is my belief that Hon Jones deliberately attempted to mislead the House in order to conceal the fact he was involved in a ministerial meeting and in a decision-making process regarding the Manea Footsteps of Kupe project,” Seymour’s letter to Mallard said.
Jones declared the conflict of interest in November 2017 and said he had no role in the Government’s decision to grant up to $4.6 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) to the Manea.
But he took part in a meeting about Manea on February 16 last year with four other ministers and, according to one official at the meeting, gave reassurances about the project’s viability in response to questions from Finance Minister Grant Robertson.
Jones has pushed back on the official’s description, saying he simply provided publicly available information.
Seymour alleged that Jones’ answers to written parliamentary questions misled Parliament, in particular his answers that he had had “no formal meetings regarding the Manea Footprints of Kupe project since receiving my ministerial warrants” and that he “was not part of the decision-making process”.
Given Jones’ presence and comments in the February meeting, Seymour said that “no reasonable observer would come to the conclusion that Hon Jones was not part of the decision-making process”.
Jones said he would meet with Mallard and take advice on the matter. His answer about having no formal meetings was in response to a question about who he had met in relation to PGF investment for Manea, but Jones said he thought it was about whether he had met Manea representatives.
“I had one interpretation for what the question represented. I would never want to willingly mislead Parliament,” Jones said.
Jones has already had to correct 20 answers to questions from the National Party last year after he failed to disclose meetings. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has backed Jones, saying he followed all the advice from the Cabinet Office about managing the conflict of interest.
But she said it would have been helpful if Jones had left the meeting, and Jones accepted that.
The Government was forced onto the back foot yesterday afternoon after Mallard accepted an application from National’s regional economic development spokesman Paul Goldsmith for an urgent debate about Jones’ conflict of interest.
Goldsmith, in the debate, drew attention to the level of PGF money that has gone to Northland.
“The nature of spending $100m of taxpayers’ money in one region, the Northland region, where the Minister says he has deep connections, is a challenging matter in terms of maintaining integrity in the system.”
Senior Minister David Parker told the House Northland had high rates of violence, inter-generational welfare dependency and imprisonment and was worthy of PGF investment.
Shane Jones is in dire need of what business psychologists call a “sweeper upper” — a trusted official who guards their minister’s back and pulls a metaphorical choke chain when necessary to keep him in line.
Smart politicians — or business chiefs, for that matter — who know they have a tendency to over-reach frequently employ a trusted minder. Not simply an executive assistant (although smart EAs do often take this role), but someone who can navigate the shoals of politics and curb their minister’s impulsive and untidy tendencies which expose them to unnecessary grief.
It would be difficult for the “first citizen of the provinces” to accept that.
But for a Harvard-educated politician who has chaired the Fisheries Commission among other entities, and who knows the score on conflicts of interest, being lazy on process doesn’t cut it.
The “conflicts of interest” furore over a $4.6 million grant for the Manea “Footprints of Kupe” project is yet another of those wakeup calls Jones really doesn’t need.
He is getting a deserved hammering over his failure to fully recuse himself from ministerial discussions which took place before the final decision to make the $4.6m grant.
His slating of a male journalist as a “bunny boiler” makes him a buffoon. This tendency to purple prose is undermining his credibility.
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is a “$3 billion over three years” commitment that New Zealand First secured as part of the 2017 coalition negotiations.
Cabinet has oversight of the PGF and makes the call on investments of $20m and more. But Regional Economic Development Ministers make the call on investments between $1m and $20m.
This provides an extraordinary amount of change for Cabinet Ministers to effectively play with.
There is a good case for more investment in the regions to boost growth and productivity.
The Northland cultural project was one of the first to get signed off by Cabinet after the Coalition took power in late 2017.
Jones was sensible to declare an interest in the project with the Cabinet Office early, in November 2017, and indicated he would not be involved in any decision to grant funding to the project under the fund.
But he was unwise to stay in the room while PGF Ministers Grant Robertson, Phil Twyford and David Parker held discussions over the proposal to invest $4.6m in a project that Treasury had questioned.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment notes that Robertson raised concerns about the broader management and commercial operations of the Manea projects. Jones provided a reassurance that the project had Far North Holdings (the commercial arm of the Far North District Council) involved in its governance structures and he was comfortable their presence would alleviate any concerns.
Robertson was comfortable to sign the briefing knowing this mitigation was in place.
Far North Holdings is chaired by Bill Birnie, an investment banker. Birnie, who is managing director of Birnie Capital, has held a range of government appointments including chair of Sport NZ’s audit, risk and finance committee, deputy chair of High Performance Sport NZ and deputy chair of the Film Commission.
Other board members include accountant Sarah Petersen, who chairs the Northland regional development agency Northland Inc; Ross Blackman, who was for a long time involved as business manager for NZ’s America’s Cup challenges; Northland farmer and businessman Kevin Baxter; and, former National Foreign Minister Murray McCully.
They are all experienced in governance.
Funding milestones have also been established.
The furore is bigger than Shane Jones.
It is also a wakeup call for Robertson, who as Finance Minister has his own reputation for probity to maintain. A reputation which will be challenged if the mishaps over the fund end up with it being tarred as nothing more than a “political slush fund”.
The ministers surely knew Jones had declared an interest and should have excluded him from their discussions.
Fundamentally, there is a question of whether ministers should be involved at all in direct decisions in the $1m-$20m range.
The Westland Milk Products grant is a case in point.
Treasury also told the Government to defer a decision about lending to debt-laden Westland Milk Products after banks had turned it down.
But despite the advice, Jones and Robertson pushed ahead and signed off on the $9.9m loan.
This is not the only PGF investment to be questioned by Treasury.
So far that has not troubled ministers — but it should.
It is not “their” fund, after all.