The Regional Development Minister is talking up a plan to burn woodchips and sawdust to power a paper mill – and talking down his coalition partners.
Shane Jones, at New Zealand First’s annual meeting, said Cabinet had tasked him with looking into an on-site generator for the Kinleith paper mill, to be fuelled with by products.
He told reporters at the event Cabinet had not set a specific limit on funding, but it was to come out of the Regional Infrastructure Fund.
Whether it took the form of a loan – as National has typically preferred – or a grant, was yet to be decided.
Jones gave a speech at the event criticising Christopher Luxon’s quarterly plans, and warning against “managerialism”.
“We don’t want simple, incremental change. We don’t want monitoring of processes. We don’t want maintenance of procedures. We don’t, as well, want a system where every quarter you measure something that may or may not have an effect,” he said.
His speech called for more action on electricity prices, calling out his coalition partners for inaction.
“When you see loud and proud rhetoric about such matters – which may seem discordant because our two fellow travellers are not particularly interested in doing anything substantial – please back us.
“Unless we can make that change – shrink the cost of electricity, expand employment, give opportunities to every single community – we are just whistling in the wind.
He repeated those sentiments to reporters later.
“This is a time for profound leadership for the country. Managing the status quo – managing incrementalism in areas such as the energy sector – is not going to deliver the dividends for society.”
Asked later whether his plan was stepping too far into Energy Minister Simon Watts’ jurisdiction, he expressed frustration he did not have that role for himself.
“Look, the reality is the PM had the chance to make me the energy minister. I guess the view was formed that a safer pair of hands would be found in National.
“I’m a big boy. I can live with that. But don’t for a moment think that you’re going to shut New Zealand First up about energy and electricity policy, because it’s a good so valuable it affects the entirety of the economy.”
He told reporters the managerial approach would only lead to the decline of industry in regional New Zealand.
“This is not a time where we can sit back and quietly believe that the market will solve all our problems. The market will solve problems in the following sense: we will have rust belts, we will have a hollowing out of our economy in regional New Zealand.”
Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill ‘unnecessary’
Jones also had some particular criticism for ACT leader David Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill, which the coalition agreement demands must be passed.
The bill received fierce opposition at select committee, and New Zealand First has previously shown reluctance to move ahead with it.
“I personally have got zero time for David Seymour’s regulatory bill. In my view, the bill is filigree.
“It is unnecessary, but it has the capacity to be meddled with by the judiciary and turn into something in the future that will be be, be akin to a curse,” he said in his speech.
He said leader Winston Peters had quoted Shakespeare during the negotiations.
“It goes: Shakespeare says ‘to do a great right, sometimes you have to do a little wrong’.”
Jones later explained the bill at the time of the coalition negotiations was intended to put the Regulatory Standards regime to a popular vote in a referendum.
“We could have argued incessantly … on the question of what bill did we think we were agreeing to? In the end, we parked up any dogmatism and took a pragmatic view in order to maintain a great right.”
Asked whether the coalition partners would need to compromise in return, he had a simple answer: “They already are”.
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