Revealed: All The 300 Fast-track Projects And Ministers' Conflicts Of Interest

Friday, 11 October 2024, 6:52 pm
Article: RNZ

Jo Moir, Political Editor

The government has outlined the process it followed when conflicts of interest were identified with its Fast-track Approvals bill.

An independent advisory group was set up to assess the 384 projects that applied to be listed in the bill, which will pass through Parliament by the end of the year.

The group provided recommendations on each project, which was then assessed by ministers Chris Bishop, Shane Jones and Simeon Brown, who compiled a list of 149 to put before Cabinet, which were approved.

The full report from the advisory group has now been published by the Ministry for the Environment.

On Sunday, Minister for Infrastructure Chris Bishop released the list of projects that would be considered as part of the bill, which took into consideration capacity from expert panels who will be required to assess each project before it was given the green light.

"The makeup of the final list is not a reflection of the quality of projects which weren't chosen in the end, nor is it a sign that any future application to the Fast-track process for these projects would be unsuccessful," Bishop said.

The government has faced criticism from opponents of the legislation that ministers had not been forthcoming about potential or actual conflicts of interest when choosing the projects to go ahead.

Bishop has responded to that criticism today by releasing the projects he and his colleagues had conflicts with and the process that was used to manage them.

Each minister assessed the 384 projects that related to the sectors they have ministerial responsibility for.

Bishop was charged with housing, land development, and infrastructure, Brown took transport and energy, while Jones considered mining, quarrying and aquaculture farming projects.

During that process Jones identified conflicts with eight projects and consideration of those was transferred to Tama Potaka.

Those projects were:

• Te Aupouri Fisheries Management Ltd
• James Murray Aquaculture Ltd
• Taharoa Ironsands Ltd (3 projects)
• Kings Quarry Ltd
• Katikati Quarries Ltd
• Matamata Metal Supplies

Bishop had one conflict of interest that was transferred to Brown.

"I identified one project with a potential conflict of interest due to a possible perception of having publicly advocated for it previously, and out of an abundance of caution I transferred the decision to Minister Brown. That project was Winton Land Limited's Sunfield development in Auckland," he said.

How were conflicts of interest managed?

A letter from Bishop to Potaka sets out exactly the process for managing or transferring the conflicts.

If Bishop had a conflict, then Brown would be acting minister of infrastructure. If Brown had a conflict, then Jones would be acting transport minister. If Jones had a conflict, Potaka would be acting minister of regional development.

If two or three ministers (including Potaka) had a conflict, then the remaining non-conflicted ministers would make the decision as acting ministers. If all four had a conflict in relation to the same project, alternative arrangements would be made through the Cabinet Office.

Transfers were only required if conflicts of interest were identified in relation to projects for which the minister had sector responsibility.

"Once delegated ministers had made decisions, the final list of projects was considered by Cabinet committee and Cabinet. Ahead of those meetings, ministers reviewed their interests and declared any conflicts of interest in relation to any of the listed projects," Bishop said.

"Ministers who declared an interest with a particular project left the room for any discussion at Cabinet committee or Cabinet relating to that project."

Announced the 149 projects on Sunday, Bishop said they would help rebuild the economy, fix the housing crisis, improve energy security and address the country's infrastructure deficit.

"It's about getting NZ moving and cutting through the red tape", he said in a press conference.

"It's about jobs and growth."

At a press conference in Laos, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon backed the process to manage conflicts of interest, saying he thought it had been handled well.

"We assiduously worked with the Cabinet office to make sure from the beginning of those conversations that we had good protocols in place.

"Where there were conflicts, ministers were asked not to participate in the conversations or to leave the rooms."

Critics of the bill have accused it of running roughshod over the environment or democracy.

Initially, the ministers would have the final sign-off for the projects, but this was eventually changed so that an expert panel would get the final say.

The huge public interest in the bill meant the select committee had to restrict the number of submissions.

Submissions also closed before the final list of projects was made public.

RNZ analysis has shown companies and shareholders associated with 12 projects gave more than $500,000 in political donations to National, ACT and New Zealand First.

Winton director Christopher Meehan, in whose Sunfield development Bishop declared a conflict of interest, donated $50,000 to ACT in 2023 and $103,260 to National. Speargrass Holdings, another company of which Meehan is a director, also gave $52,894 to National in 2022. In total, $206,154.23 was donated.

About five months after Speargrass made its donation to National, Bishop (then National's housing spokesperson), issued a statement supporting a legal case Meehan was involved in against Kāinga Ora.

Bishop transferred the decision over the Sunfield development to Simeon Brown.

Conflicts of interest process needs to be widened - Greens

The Green Party said it was good there was a conflicts of interest process in place, but the government should reveal the conflicts of all Cabinet ministers, not just the ministers with responsibility for the bill.

Its environment spokesperson Lan Pham said when half a million dollars of donations were made to the governing parties, the public deserved to know who had conflicts.

"New Zealand really deserves a bigger picture of transparency and accountability from government as a whole, and I mean the three governing parties, about what exactly the donations are that they've received from these applicants under fast track," she said.

"We deserve to know who the real beneficiaries of this process are when we're overriding our normal democratic processes in our environmental legislation."

Greenpeace Aotearoa's executive director Russel Norman said because the project involved individual ministers making decisions, there were always going to be conflicts, but the way the government has gone about managing it was messy.

"It's just ended up with a big mess as they hand projects back and forward, which I think demonstrates what's wrong with this kind of process, when they have to come up with such an elaborate game of Twister in order to try to manage it," he said.

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