Minister Shane Jones speaks out for forestry in Gisborne at Regional Growth Summit

Regional development minister Shane Jones speaks about forestry and the $1.2b Regional Infrastructure Fund in Gisborne. Photo / Wynsley Wrigley.

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says forestry will remain a key component of the Tairāwhiti economy.

Those people who wanted forestry to disappear “are at the wrong meeting”, Jones said at the Tairāwhiti Regional Growth Summit held at Midway Surf Rescue Community Hub in Gisborne on Thursday.

Jones said he had seen such comment in the local media.

“I am not happy with the commentary and the narrative that has gathered momentum...in this part of New Zealand. Forestry is being burdened with a level of expectation that worries me.”

Jones said he was a pro-growth and pro-industry politician (including mining) and that was why New Zealand First was back in Parliament and he was back in Cabinet.

He was pro-growth and pro accepting responsibility to ensure the environment was not “fatally wounded”.

He liked “fighting” and the concept of ideas, he said.

Local people with local solutions with practical outcomes could find “no louder supporter than my good self”.

The coalition Government had negotiated a $1.2b Regional Infrastructure Fund.

The fund was an “intervention” using taxpayer money that would go beyond consultation reports and “endless policy seances”.

Its focus would be on productivity and resilience and would do so primarily through a mix of loan and equity into new and existing infrastructure, he said.

There would be some putea “on the margins”.

The funding did not match the funding provided by the previous Labour-New Zealand First Government during Covid-19, but the new Government had new priorities and challenges.

Jones was a Cabinet minister during the first term of the previous Labour Government when New Zealand First had been a coalition partner.

Jones several times praised the work he had done with then-Labour Cabinet minister and Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri.

He spoke of the push from Gisborne District Council to do something practical about stopbanks.

Without stopbanks programmes there would have been devastation in Tairāwhiti, and Taradale “‘would have been wiped out’”.

Stopbanks were a small example of what could be done.

Jones said he was looking forward to funding applications.

Other speakers at the summit included Trust Tairawhiti chief executive Doug Jones, Te Ara Tipuna Charitable Trust trustee Hekia Parata, Matai chief executive officer Dr Samanatha Holdsworth and Matai chief operating officer Leigh Potter.