5. Provincial Growth Fund—Minginui Nursery and Ngati Hine Forestry TrustHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentProvincial Growth Fund—Minginui Nursery and Ngati Hine Forestry Trust5. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: What exactly is the Government purchasing with the Provincial Growth Fund's $5.8 million payment to the Minginui Nursery and what will the Government purchase with the $6 million payment to the Ngati Hine Forestry Trust the announcement of which he said last week is imminent"?Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): The funding for the Minginui Nursery—and for the learning of the member Minginui is a neglected forsaken place in the Bay of Plenty a long way from metropolitan New Zealand. It is our intention that over the next three years a scale-up enterprise will take place where native seedlings of up to one million a year will be made available for the billion-tree strategy and that investment will be alongside the scientific and technological expertise of Scion. It will generate jobs and it will expand the opportunities in an area that was described by the former Treaty Minister as "atrocious".Hon Paul Goldsmith: Who will own the seedlings grown in the nursery and the trees grown on Ngāti Hine land?Hon SHANE JONES: Starting with the latter part of the question Ngāti Hine a hapū of the Ngāpuhi tribe are in the midst of commercial negotiations and it would be unwise of me prior to their fulfilment to talk any further about it. On the question of the seedlings that will flow from the Minginui Nursery—and the growth in employment of up to 90 people—when they are planted they will be based both on the Department of Conservation estate and on Māori land and general land but they will be native seedlings not pine trees.Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked the question: who will own the seedlings? He said where they will be planted but that's not the question I was asking.SPEAKER: That's probably a fair comment.Hon SHANE JONES: The seedlings are not designed to stay in pots; they're designed to be planted.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order—SPEAKER: No; I am going to ask the Minister to have another go. Who will own the seedlings?Hon SHANE JONES: The seedlings are being developed by the Minginui Ngāti Whare Trust. For as long as they remain in seedling pots they will remain the property on the enclosure owned by the Minginui Nursery.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Will they sell the seedlings commercially in competition with other producers?Hon SHANE JONES: As I said this project ticks a whole host of the criteria of the Provincial Growth Fund. The thought that the level of employees will grow from nine to 90 is I know hard on the other side of the House to believe. Once those seedlings are up to the million-tree mark they will not displace any private sector investment because we have a gross shortage of native seedlings.Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Again he did not answer—SPEAKER: No I think on that occasion the question was certainly addressed.Hon Paul Goldsmith: When he told the House last week that he had been "scrupulously faithful" to the Cabinet policy process how did he square Cabinet's stipulation that investments under the fund "should neither socialise losses nor privatise gains" with what appears to be a clear private gain for the owners in this case?Hon SHANE JONES: That question in terms of the hapū Ngāti Hine's forestry initiative will be answered once we have made full announcements about that particular set of commercial negotiations. On the question of faithfulness my life is a work in progress in that regard.Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the interest of knowing precisely the ownership when the seedlings have left Minginui and are being transported by truck and before they are placed in the ground who will own them?Hon SHANE JONES: I'm confident they'll be conveyed by KiwiRail.Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He didn't answer that question.SPEAKER: That's true but I'm going to let it run.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why did he choose these two entities out of the countless others who grow seedlings for trees commercially for funding by the provincial growth fund?Hon SHANE JONES: As you would know the choices don't just lie with the Minister for Regional Development; these choices are made by the Minister of Finance the Minister of Transport and Mr David Parker. They go through a process where applications are received by the bureaucracy advice is tendered to the Ministers and we make very judicious—and we observed a great deal of diligence and Minginui came out on top; something that they never enjoyed under the last regime.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Has the Minister been scrupulously faithful to the Cabinet Manual in identifying all actual and perceived conflicts of interest in projects funded by the provincial growth fund?Hon SHANE JONES: In so far as Minginui and Ngāti Hine obviously. In so far as all other announcements that have been made rest assured I have no personal stake. Despite rumours to the contrary I live too close to an intersection. Thanks."