Development Minister and his ‘booty’

WELLINGTON: ‘‘To the winner goes the booty’’. That’s how Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones described how he ended up with a billion dollars to spend in the regions.

Mr Jones appeared before a parliamentary committee yesterday morning answering questions on expenditure in his portfolio in the coming financial year.

National MP Paul Goldsmith questioned how it was that 60% of funding distributed so far through the Provincial Growth Fund had gone to Northland, where New Zealand First MP Mr Jones and his party leader Winston Peters are based, while the rest of New Zealand had received only 40%.

‘‘How do the people of New Zealand have confidence that this fund is not just a slush fund focused on political gain for a party that is well known to be focusing on Northland?’’ Mr Goldsmith asked Mr Jones.

Mr Jones said the fund came about as a result of the political process in creating the Coalition Government.

‘‘There’s rule No 1 in politics — to the winner goes the booty.

‘‘The booty in this case is to all the surge regions, and the best organised surge region . . . has proven to be the leadership of the North.’’

Surge regions are those identified as needing early investment.

They include Northland, Bay of Plenty, East Coast, Hawke’s Bay ManawatuWhanganui and the West Coast.

It emerged during the hearing yesterday that up to $61 million had so far gone to Northland while $42 million was distributed to other regions, plus $7.5 million to the Howard League for national driver licensing.

Mr Goldsmith said Northland had got more than asked for while the rest of the regions got only a fraction of the $240 million asked for.

‘‘How do you justify one region getting more than half of the total spending so far, and more than they asked for, and the rest of the regions of New Zealand making do with only a tiny fraction of what they asked for, and less than half .’’

Mr Jones credited the advocacy and preparedness of former National MPs Far North Mayor John Carter and Murray McCully.

‘‘It just came to pass that first up, best dressed.’’

Although Mr Jones said there was an ‘‘extensive programme’’ planned for the South Island and other surge areas, Provincial Growth Fund head Nigel Bickle told the committee only 15% of applications being progressed were from the South Island.

Asked why there were so few South Island projects being approved, Mr Jones said that the quality of applications from the South Island was not high enough.

‘‘. . . the fund needs to see applications and proposals of a higher quality than the dregs of John Key’s cycleways down in the South Island that never got funded.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Goldsmith said there was a clear bias in the decisionmaking.

‘‘We’re talking about $3 billion being spent here. It’s a lot of money and it requires good clear processes and there’s a complete absence of them.’’

Mr Jones said later it was ‘‘tawdry and amateurish’’ to suggest that because the focus had been on the North that other regions would suffer.

‘‘The people of the South Island, they’re anxious to for me to get down there.

‘‘They’re conscious that there is putea [funds] to meet their proposals.

‘‘They’ve just got to groom them up in a fashion that passes muster with our officials.’’ — NZME

❛ I would say to the South Islanders . . . the fund needs to see applications and proposals of a higher

quality than the dregs of John Key’s cycleways