Jones’ staffer arranged undeclared dinner with mining companies
Discussions about an ‘informal’ dinner with mining interests in February are now closed, says Shane Jones’ office
Jones is not shy about declaring that he’s close to vested interest and business. He takes a hawkish approach when challenged, saying he makes no apologies for being close to the business interests in his various portfolios. For example, last month, he declared: “I am a pro-industry champion”. And when accused of being too close to mining interests, he replied, “I would have thought I was more cosy with the fishing people”.
Jones is also keen to emphasize that he often contacts industry leaders rather than having them lobby him. Nicola Toki, the chief executive of Forest & Bird, has labelled this “reverse lobbying.”
The Minister emphasises that he likes to reach out to and hear from as many voices as possible on his portfolios. Therefore his dinner meeting with mining bosses in Westport isn’t so significant. And he’s been backed up on this by lobby group Straterra – its chief executive Josie Vidal told Newsroom that “Ministers take advice from many corners, so one dinner does not give people any kind of extraordinary advantage.” She praises Jones for being “very engaged” with the industry.
Vidal also claims that in terms of the Westport dinner, the media has, therefore, “made much of very little”. Furthermore, she is full of praise for Jones for being so outwardly engaged: “It is entirely appropriate for the minister to meet people informally as he travels around the country… This dinner was early in the coalition Government’s term, shortly after the makeup of the Government was confirmed, and an excellent opportunity for industry engagement for a recently elected minister.”
According to communications released this week by Jones’ office, the mining industry was also so keen on getting Jones back to the coast for further meetings and to visit their mining operations that they offered to hire a helicopter for him. An email from Federation Mining vice president Simon Delander, who was one of the three who met Jones for dinner in February, said to Jones’ staff: “We did indicate to the minister on Friday evening that Bathurst and Federation are happy to share the cost of a helicopter to move between sites to cut down travel time and allow a good overview of the mining on the coast.”
Such arrangements and offers should fuel further questions about conflicts of interest, or at least their perception. However, the most critical issue here is that all these meetings are made public. It’s a simple case of the public’s right to open government.
The right of the public to know what their government is doing is an age-old part of democracy, with the desire for transparency becoming more critical over time. It helps the public and the media keep an eye on corruption or abuse of office. Yet some politicians are reluctant to fully comply with the rules or spirit of the transparency measures. Shane Jones is one of those politicians.
Are we seriously going to allow this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government the power to ignore OIAs and curtail legal challenges to their insane Fast Track Bill…
Fast-track bill could affect NZ’s reputation – Transparency International
The bill, which is before a select committee, has been criticised for potentially exposing the ministers to corruption allegations.
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton said the role of ministers as decision-makers should be scrapped. And the auditor-general had urged that the bill included requirements for better managing conflicts of interest.
Transparency International – which campaigns against corruption worldwide – is most concerned about this conflict of roles, in that ministers would be both gatekeepers of fast-track referrals and the ones making the decision to green-light projects.
The organisation’s New Zealand chief executive Julie Haggie told Checkpoint that there was “just too much power” concentrated in “one aspect of that decision, in order to give trust to people that there is a fair, accountable and transparent process going on”.
The bill aimed to speed up the approval of projects and reduce the cost of consenting. At the moment, about $1.3 billion is spent each year on the consenting of projects and the time taken to get a consent has doubled within five years, according to the Infrastructure Commission.
The new regime will set up an expert panel to give recommendations – but the transport, regional development and infrastructure ministers would have final say on approving projects such as mines or dams, regardless of an expert panel’s advice and even if a court had previously denied consent.
The process as it stands was problematic because it “side-steps” the resource consent process that other organisations needed to go through, and because ministers could reject the panel’s expert advice, she said.
“Conflicts of interest are more about actual personal involvement of the minister – and we’re not saying that’s necessarily the case.
“What it sets up, though, is that people who’ve got a strong interest and power in a situation are making referrals, and decisions, and are even setting up a system within a bill that then also reduces the amount of challenge, the amount of participation and even notification of people who will be affected by those decisions.
“Those things are inherent in our laws… that right to appeal, that right to challenge, and the right to know about things, so [under this process] the power is concentrating at a point where people who are affected will have even less say.”
Checkpoint host Lisa Owen asked whether the new system might raise questions about donations to the politicians making those decisions.
Haggie said that was a broader concern. “We’ve heard there are two companies that are on the list [of those invited to apply for projects to be fast-tracked] already, which is itself quite strange because it’s already been developed before the legislation is passed.”
Transparency International believed public perception around the fast-track bill might be improved by a sunset clause, “so that it doesn’t just go on and on” and said the scope was currently “very broad”, not just involving the Resource Management Act.
“The bill seems to have exclusion clause for the OIA [Official Information Act] so it’s not clear whether people will be able to seek information and gain it, and then there are the legal challenge rights which seem to be curtailed as well.”
…and we are all going along with this because the electorate were angry that Jacinda had the temerity to save 20 000 lives!
I feel we almost deserve the horror that is coming.
TDB warned you that this new hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government were going to bend over backwards for their donor class and were focused on vast environmental damage for the Trans National Mining Industry.
Lo and fucking behold we have this egregious fast track power process where 3 of the most stupid Politicians we have, Simeon Brown, Chris Bishop and Dr Pork, Shane Jones will have the power to over ride the experts and over ride any environmental concerns whatsoever to fast track their mates projects…
Quarry connected to $55,000 donation to NZ First and Shane Jones, approached over fast-track
One of the firms approached about the Government’s new Fast-Track consenting billhas a part-owner and director whose other company has donated $55,000 to the NZ First Party and MP Shane Jones.
AJR Finance donated $50,000 to NZ First and $5000 to Shane Jones at the last election. AJR Finance’s sole director is Andrew Ritchie, who owns the company along with Mark and Elizabeth Markovina.
Ritchie is a director of Kings Quarry and, along with the Markovinas, owns 50 per cent of the company. The other 50 per cent is owned by Alexander and Stan Semenoff. Stan Semenoff donated to Jones’ campaign in 2008 and is a distant relative of Jones.
…the Auditor-General is scathing of the damage this will cause…
The Auditor-General John Ryan is concerned the Government’s fast-track consenting bill, which will give three ministers broad powers to consent certain developments, lacks transparency and effective ways of dealing with real or perceived conflicts of interest.
The bill allows three ministers to consent a range of nationally significant projects, with an expert panel having the ability to impose certain conditions on those consents.
Ryan wrote that the bill needed a stronger mechanism than just the Cabinet Manual for dealing with real or perceived conflicts of interest, given the extent of the power the legislation would grant to ministers.
…we have 3 Politicians as power crazed as Muldoon on Meth running the entire infrastructure program of NZ.
Do you honestly trust these fucking Muppets over the advice of actual engineers and people who have to build the infrastructure?
If Labour had pulled a stunt like this, you’d all be screaming about abuse of power, but Shane Jones, Chris Bishop and Simeon Brown are doing it, it’s suddenly ok?
The Right are hypocrites!
Allowing 3 of the worst Ministers to have the power of God over our economy is a terrible idea that will produce a harvest of self interest.
So why do 40% support this out right corruption…
1News poll: NZ split on Govt’s Fast-track Approvals Bill
Just 40% of people support the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill
…the fact 40% of Kiwis support handing this Government such corrosive powers really tells us just how polarised politics has become in NZ.
Right wingers know this is vile, but it’s more important to own the libs and stick it the libtards and make the libs cry than actually engage in policy debate.
This is how far culture wars have manipulated the political debate, it doesn’t matter that what National/ACT/NZF is corrupt and ugly counter productive, what matters is the Left cry.
Thanks to Social media hate algorithms, loneliness and isolation, this is what we have become, this is who we is now.
Feelings and revenge matter far more than good governance and the common good.
“People who wanted shit to happen” built leaky homes, built on flood plains & unstable land, let abusers care for children & a host of other problems. You need a genuine reason to let the love of money override the ability of others to live a peaceful life or to destroy the environment.
40% of the country want to get shit done through corrupt means.
The right have no problem in selecting National governments to fulfill their corrupt thoughts. We saw it through Key’s corrupt years and now history is repeating itself through Key’s protege Luxon.
Destroying our environment through mining and smoking legislation is a sick joke.
Labour list the last election because
-they shut Auckland down a second time
-they denied people their right to body autonomy
-they denied citizens their right to return home in their hour of greatest need
-they pandered to an inept Min. of Health
-they shut down the economy too harshly
-and they then had to waste too much borrowed money
-while they increased the minimum wage they were too timid too make necessary tax changes
-they focused on structural centralism to the exclusion of regional development.
-without mandate or public discussion they tried to introduce co-governance which would have transferred power and decision making to a cabal of Wellington bureaucrats and Iwi elite.
-they couldn’t, in six years, achieve any practical, tangible outcomes to improve people’s life.
-in short their
40% of the country want to get shit done through corrupt means.
The right have no problem in selecting National governments to fulfill their corrupt thoughts. We saw it through Key’s corrupt years and now history is repeating itself through Key’s protege Luxon.
Destroying our environment through mining and smoking legislation is a sick joke.
it’s worse – Key was a money man with charisma. this guy couldn’t con his way out of a paper bag. His whole persona revolves around a narcissistic view through a Gawd lens – a hundred times more slimey and snake like. If it wasn’t do clumsy, I’d be worried
And to his credit Key was not a race baiting wanker.
Yes I agree Bonnie and National are squeaky clean.
We have a Government that’s corrupt, a Government that will do only harm.
We elect people to do things not sit on their corrupt hands.
Refer to the George Carlin skit about the average american and realize half the population is dumber than that.
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