Shane Jones tells Auditor-General he's 'alert' to signs of special scrutiny

Monday, 13 May 2019

Shane Jones has admitted to reporters that his 'unnecessarily loud' style had drawn attention to the Provincial Growth Fund.

Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has told the Auditor General he is alert to signs that he and his party face more intense inspection than others.

On Monday Jones spoke at a media briefing for the Provincial Growth Fund, a $1 billion a year project to allocate funds to boost growth outside Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.

The fund has come under fire from opponents as being a political vehicle for NZ First, with opponents calling for Jones to be sacked over his handling of a conflict of interest in the allocation of money.

In April the Auditor-General announced it would be paying close attention to the fund and ordering an in-depth review into aspects such as managing, monitoring and evaluating the fund.

* Shane Jones 'provided reassurance' to ministers, despite declaring conflict

* Prime Minister rejects calls to sack Shane Jones, saying conflict was managed**

During the briefing, Jones revealed to reporters that top officials from the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) had met him in his office in Parliament earlier on Monday morning 'to have a korero with me as to what is it they think they are doing'.

The Auditor-General, John Ryan, had declared a conflict of interest, Jones said, because of his former role at the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

'He has a very good understanding of the challenges of allocating pūtea [fund] because the audit department actually pinged MPI several years ago for their stewardship for their…primary partnership fund,' Jones said.

'I think the Auditor-General's very aware that I am incredibly alert to any suggestion that just because this came from NZ First that it should suffer a more intense level of inspection, or because I have wandered around with a megaphone, somehow that means something not quite kosher is going on.'

Jones said he had also been given an assurance that when the Auditor-General described 'policy' it meant the process the civil service uses to allocate money 'not the policy of politicians seeking an electoral mandate and then crystallising a public policy as the business of government and marrying money into it'.

The OAG declined to comment on its meeting with Jones. It was not clear whether the conflict of interest which Jones raised had any relation to the PGF.

'The Auditor-General's role immediately before commencing this one was with MPI;as is standard practice, he is therefore not involved in any matters affecting MPI for a period of two years.'

National's regional economic development spokesman Paul Goldsmith said Jones' comments were similar to others he had made about people who were asking questions of the NZ First MP.

'I think that's just another example of [Jones] frequent attempts to bully officials or politicians who raise perfectly legitimate questions.'

Act leader David Seymour said Jones 'should proactively release any correspondence leading up to, and notes taken' from his meeting with the OAG.

'New Zealanders need to have confidence he is not attempting to influence the very officials who are investigating his fund.'

'Excessively loud, unnecessarily loud'

Jones, the self-styled 'champion of the provinces' claimed his 'excessively loud' style had brought scrutiny on the fund.

'I accept my part of the responsibility as to why there is a perceived huge level of whitewater around this government initiative,' Jones told the briefing.

'It's not only about the size of the fund, it's about the conduct of the politician who technically is not the steward of the fund, but I'm the first person to put their hand up and say this was a key feature of the coalition agreement,' Jones said.

'When I have, when I had, the privilege of acting as the face of the fund, I took an approach which led, I think, to a host of media interest and concern, to ramp it up, to talk up the size of the pūtea, the reach of the mission, and that has led from time to time, me being perceivably at odds with the media,' he said, adding that he was more 'robust' with the media than other ministers.

The attention on the fund was 'more a reflection of my upfront and possibly excessively loud, unnecessarily loud advocacy of the fund from time to time'.