June 07, 2018
Nats snipe at Northland surge
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the advocacy and political skills of former National MPs Murray McCully and Far North Mayor John Carter in getting projects ready for the government’s $3 billion provincial growth fund.
Mr Jones fronted up to parliament’s economic development select committee yesterday to face a grilling from National MPs keen to paint it as a slush fund which is overwhelmingly being spent in Northland, where the minister and his New Zealand First leader Winston Peters are from.
He said it was a case of first up, best dressed, with the north showing a great deal of preparedness.
Other regions were still developing their plans, and in the case of the South Island, the fund wanted to see applications of a higher quality than the dregs of John Key's cycleways that never got funded.
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