Business high-flyers could help dish out regional development fund

The new regional development fund will help forestry. Photo / Bevan Conley

Heavy-hitters from the private sector will be shoulder-tapped to sit on a panel to help dish out money from a massive new regional development fund.

The $1 billion-a-year fund is the centrepiece of the coalition agreement between Labour and New Zealand First. Many details are yet to be determined, including what areas will be eligible.

NZ First MP Shane Jones will be sworn in today as Regional Economic Development Minister, Infrastructure Minister and Forestry Minister.

He told the Herald applications for funding would have to meet a "transformational test", and a panel of experts would be assembled to judge that.

"They will not exclusively be the classic bureaucracy ... the challenge to get transformational outcomes is how to find people who have actually had experience in investing and creating outcomes that have either transformed their own fortunes of the community that they live in.

"We are not going to have projects snagged in a constipated bureaucracy. They will receive a sharp purgative treatment from my good self."

Jones said that during negotiations National's campaign chair and outgoing Finance Minister Steven Joyce identified several people in the private sector that his officials relied upon for "commercial intelligence and robustness".

"I know we are political opponents. But, hey, at the end of the day we are a small country and the types of commercial people that might be interested in playing such roles and have talent to offer are not actually that large in number. And I think we will end up finding people that were probably giving Steven Joyce advice."

Among the projects the fund will help pay for is a new "Billion Trees" project to plant 100 million trees a year on marginal private or crown land, to boost the forestry industry.

Rail will also benefit, as well as support for regional airports. Jones said many of the trees will be planted by beneficiaries.

"When you are in areas such as the Far North and the East Coast, I will have no indigenous nephews on couches. They will get up, go to work, and plant trees. And then indigenous rights will have meaning in a modern, social context. None of this university common room-type stuff."

Jones expected strong demand.

"It is not an inordinate amount of dough when one thinks of the infrastructure deficit and the plethora of projects that are braying for attention.

"The focus is on the provinces, the threshold and criteria will be signed off by Cabinet. I will be working extremely closely with [Labour MP and new Economic Development Minister] David Parker."

He and Parker would work out how to determine which areas would be classified as regional, but said, "we are not starting our forests on One Tree Hill".

Priorities for regions around New Zealand could include:

• Far North: Water and sewage reticulation and a bigger share of the cost of road maintenance.

• Northland: Increased port traffic for NorthPort, a rail link to the port, highway four-laned from Whangarei to Auckland, upgrade of bridges, investment in tourism and raw wood processing plants.

• Thames-Coromandel: Upgrade marine facilities (up to $10m) and a robust, safe, resilient state highway network.

• Bay of Plenty: Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga passenger rail, Turret Rd widened, infrastructure -- especially for housing in growth areas -- and a stadium.

• Rotorua: Wants to host the new Forestry Service, tourism development.

• Taupo: Airport terminal upgrade, roading upgrades, especially SH1 from Taupo to Turangi and Poihipi Rd, the main road west from Taupo towards Kinloch and Mangakino, funding to investigate processing logs, exploring new industries using the district's geothermal resources and reticulated water schemes and wastewater schemes to lakeshore.

• Hawke's Bay: Napier-Gisborne rail restored

• Gisborne: Rail, as above, and wood-processing plants.

• Whanganui: North and South moles repaired ($3m+), port redevelopment, velodrome roof ($6m+), rating relief, restore funding for roading, Government jobs, e.g. conservation.

• Kapiti: A community hospital in Paraparaumu and a Kapiti Island biosecurity hub/information centre at Paraparaumu Beach.