Shane Jones, the champion of the provinces and the 'frenemy' of big business

Saturday, 1 September 2018

As he opened the Waikato Economic Summit in Hamilton on Thursday, Shane Jones, the self-styled champion of the regions, seemed unable to resist having a dig at someone.

Acknowledging Tainui, Jones also welcomed others from the region, civic and business leaders, as well as 'friends, [or] if you belong to Fonterra, enemies'.

After a short pause there was laughter, some of it sounding nervous. Jones' relationship with New Zealand's largest company is well-documented and his reputation for attacking big business is growing.

The Minister for Provincial Development, Jones, who created headlines earlier this year when he called for Fonterra's chairman to quit, said it was just joking.

**READ MORE: 

* Shane Jones calls for Air NZ chair to step down, asks CEO to step down or shut up

* NZ First's Shane Jones wants ministers to have more power over public sector

* Countdown allegations 'very serious' - Minister

* Winston Peters and Shane Jones double down on Fonterra attack

* Shane Jones says Fonterra chairman should 'catch the next cab out of town'**

'I'm a politician, I'm a retail politician. You want a hefty payout, I want 5 per cent at the next election. It's pretty simple.'

The relatively soft dig came in a week where Jones also fired shots at the chief executive of Air New Zealand and a direct attack on the four Australian corporates which form bulk of New Zealand's banking sector. He has also taken on supermarket Countdown as well as The Warehouse.

With the Labour-led Government now struggling to sell itself to employers, Jones is now being accused of undermining the coalition.

Asked exactly where the joke ended and the real criticism of his target began, Jones admitted that they could be one and the same.

'I put my hand up for being the sort of politician, where the arrows in my political quiver are part theatre, they are part knuckle duster, but they are full on political,' he said.

'I know that many of the Fonterra stakeholders can't stand to be in my presence, I know that for a fact. The notion that I say and do things that I raise on behalf of provincial stakeholders, no, there's absolutely no joke. It's very tough, it's a very tough role to play,' Jones said.

'But this is the role I've been given. Probably, the word is frenemy, rather than enemy, in terms of Fonterra.'

A portmanteau of 'friend' and 'enemy', the word is typically used to mean a relationship where people act nicely towards each other, even though the fundamentally dislike one another.

'He flies at a rarefied level'

Jones has been admonished, at least lightly, in the past by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, when he called for the chairman of Air New Zealand to stand down, saying he had gone too far.

But this week Jones, a former Labour MP who had a spell as an ambassador before returning to Parliament in 2017 with NZ First, made attacks which, deliberately or not, are being seen as attacks on Ardern's strategy.

A month after returning from maternity leave, Ardern's speech in Auckland on Tuesday had been built into a test of her Government's ability to manage a sharp drop in business confidence which threatens to slow New Zealand's economy.

Ardern could scarcely have selected a more corporate setting. At an event hosted by Westpac, the bank's New Zealand chief executive, David McLean, urged the country's businesses to 'get over' an election outcome in which he speculated did not get the result they expected.

In a speech light on specifics, Ardern announced that Christopher Luxon, Air New Zealand's chief executive, would chair a new Business Advisory Council, a body which would 'advise on matters relating to the economy, our strategy and agenda'.

Jones, who previously suggested Luxon wanted to be a National Party MP, was given no notice of the appointment. Though he played down the lack of warning, he appeared to question what Luxon brought to the body.

'[He] flies at a rarefied level, far beyond me,' Jones said, adding that when he needed advice, he looked for something more down to earth.

'I'll probably go to some belching, expectorating bloke, who day to day is sweating his guts out in small business, to make a living out of infrastructure. These are the people I ordinarily find give me the best advice.'

But the treatment he gave Luxon was mild in comparison to the treatment he gave to the Australian-owned banks which dominate the sector in New Zealand.

Jones gave an interview to Stuff saying he would approach the Reserve Bank about whether maintaining provincial branches could be part of the requirements of a banking licence, in the contest of provincial branches being closed.

'It is not sustainable to enjoy a banking licence and the pleasure of ever-increasing super profits and turn your back on our rural areas,' Jones said.

If the point was not made strongly enough, Jones turned up the volume in an interview with RNZ, pointing to the profits the big four banks made, and where he believed they were coming from.

'There's $5 billion [a year] disappearing over the ditch and I can guarantee you the profits are on the back of the provinces being rogered,' Jones said.

He is not backing away from the comments, beyond admitting 'my language has been a bit rough'.

While Labour may have been privately seething about the timing of the interjections, a statement from Finance Minister Grant Robertson's office said Jones had raised 'an issue important to some in rural communities that we will have a look at'.

The Reserve Bank declined to comment. The New Zealand Bankers' Association, a lobby group for banks, issued a statement on the subject of bank branch closures generally, without mentioning Jones.

But the message has got through, with representatives contacting his office.

'The majority [of the banks] have been in contact with my office, and they're suggesting that we have a roundtable.

'There are options such as identifying which banks could look at sharing services, which banks could agree to staying in one particular area,' Jones said.

'The underlying text is, I suppose, 'you don't need a megaphone to grab our attention on this particular issue. But I'm a retail politician, this is what I'm paid to do.'

Ultimately, the finance minister was in change of the regulation of banks, but Jones maintained that it was an issue of importance for New Zealand's provinces.

Increasingly, business figures are privately saying what Opposition MPs are saying. That as well as having a Government implementing a programme of change in both industrial relations and income distribution, New Zealand First's public stances are adding to the questions.

What exactly is the Government's position on particular issues, when different parts take different stances?

Jones said that the current Government is 'the first true MMP Government this country has seen' and his role, agreed during coalition negotiations, had to be considered in that context.

'Rather than being branded as uncertainty, it should be identified at the pit of the Government's existence,' Jones said, claiming he had never said anything that undermined the role of Ardern.

'The major levers of power', the education, health, finance portfolios, lay with Labour 'and the greatest prize of all is with Jacinda,' Jones said.

'The areas where we agreed would create some space for our party and with the leader are in the political marae that I master, that is, the provinces.'

'Up you' to the PM

Paul Goldsmith, National's economic development spokesman, claimed that whatever Jones claimed, his actions appeared to deliberately undermine the Prime Minister's 'charm offensive' with business.

'I can't see any other way to interpret what Jones has done, [than] to say 'up you' to the Prime Minister, when she selects a person [Luxon] to try and bridge between the business community and the Government, and he [Jones] goes out and attacks him,' Goldsmith said.

'She's introduced by the CEO of a bank as she's trying to encourage the business community to give Government a fair go, and the next day he's out attacking the banks generally. It's untidy to say the least.'

Goldsmith said he could not recall a time when a minister in a New Zealand government had ever been so at odds with their prime minister.

'When you think of the strategy, you can understand it, to a degree, from New Zealand First's point of view. Their job is to get from [polling] 3 or 4 per cent to 5 or 6 [per cent], so that's fine.

'But the political damage it's done to the Government as a whole because it looks incoherent, and the economic damage, I think, is not irrelevant. It feeds into this sense of uncertainty.

'Any outsider looking in, is left scratching their heads and wondering, 'what is the Government's view? Who predominates? Is it the Prime Minister or is it New Zealand First?'

National has not attacked the tone of what Jones has said this week. What Jones has said about Luxon is similar to criticisms levelled by Bridges this week.

'He is [chief executive] of an SOE, in a somewhat monopolistic position with the Government,' Bridges said, adding that the company would not feel the impact of policies which were creating uncertainty.

'Air New Zealand's business model is very unaffected by that stuff, It just puts up the price of its fares and so on.'

Goldsmith said there was often a fair point inside Jones statements. 'But its the hyperbole, and the personal attacks and the naked political opportunism that pushes it out over the edge of normal economic development practice.'