January 20, 2020
Jones talk comes with no promises
Regional Economic Development and Forestry Minister Shane Jones says he is always willing to talk to people about creating jobs and businesses, but he played no part in an application to the Provincial Growth Fund for a wood processing plant in Gisborne.
Scheme promoter David Henry told Radio New Zealand he had a 15 minute conversation early last year with Mr Jones about the New Zealand wood supply chain, but he did not discuss his company, NZ Future Forests, nor the PGF.
He went on to discuss his ideas further with Crown Forestry before NZ Future Forests put in an application for a $15 million loan from the PGF, which was turned down by ministers in November.
Mr Jones says he took no part in that decision because Mr Henry's father, lawyer Brian Henry, has a long association with New Zealand First.
"Brian Henry had been identified by me as someone who may or may not represent a conflict of interest, depending on the issue, so I absented myself from consideration of that particular application, but that doesn't stop me from talking and mixing and shooting the breeze with people. That's what I think industry expects from a retail politician such as myself," he says.
Shane Jones says David Henry had the same right as anyone else to go through the official process, which he did without success.
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