In regards to the water threshold signups, at last count HBRIC had not managed to meet 50 per cent as part of the 45m cubic metre sign up needed to meet this condition precedent.
Now, Mr Newman reports HBRIC is "well advanced of that".
In explaining this he said there were three metrics that counted on this subject.
"The first one is what is the volume of water under negotiation and the volume of water under negotiation is 56 million cubic metres," he said.
"The second threshold is when a farmer or a potential irrigator moves from doing their due diligence from requesting water and a contract.
"At that point we are at 38 million cubic metres and then inside that we have a little over 24 million cubic metres countersigned."
He said as far as HBRIC was concerned, the company was reasonably well advanced in getting farmers to sign up for the scheme.
"So 24 million is countersigned 38 million - put it this way if the number is 40 million or if the number is 45 million which is simply a proxy for a cash flow that's the point that is well advanced," he said.
"But ultimately countersigned contracts will also reflect and be consolidated finally once we have removed some of the moving bits around who is the investor and ultimately have we got a construction water that delivers water to them," he said.
When asked if the board sights all the contracts before they are signed, Mr Newman responded "Ahh, no".
He said the contractual forms had been through a very rigorous governance process and under the terms and conditions, the directors have delegated the signing to him.
When it was mentioned that there was a lot of trust the HBRIC board had in him, he said "I am reasonably well paid to do a job, but there are many checks".
"If you are going to write something on this particular issue I want you to note there are many checks in this process," he said.
"And they are not just checks exercised by me personally they are checks exercised by directors, they are check exercised by other investors and their legal advisers."
He said while the no exit clauses out of the 35 year take or pay contracts, the contract itself has significant value because it guarantees reliable access to water.
Water that, if the farmer wants to access, he or she will have to invest in their own infrastructure.
Recent figures have placed this investment at $300 million dollars which Mr Newman said would be at the upper level of investment.
"It could be $100 million," he said.
"If they all went simply to arable agriculture, they didn't go to substantial other on-farm infrastructure, that's what drives the range in the number," he said.
"So I am not going to sit here and say categorically that it is absolutely 3 (hundred million) or its 1 (hundred million), it will be a range.
"Not only that, that investment will take place over a period of years so that could take 14 years that investment, based on our uptake."
Mr Newman said if Hawke's Bay wants to grow as a region it needs inwards investment such as the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme.
"Regional economies generally speaking do quite a bit to attract inwards investment," he said.
"Because it builds resilience, economic resilience, jobs, growth and all those things.
"The Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme is a large scale capital scheme, it is a large investment both off farm and on farm. Fundamentally that investment for this region is a good investment."
