Shane Jones refuses to confirm if hotel was three-minute walk from Toronto mining conference

Thursday, 25 June 2026

Although officials refuse to confirm where Shane Jones stayed, a redacted postcode on limousine receipts matches the InterContinental Toronto Centre - a luxury hotel directly connected to his conference venue by an indoor walkway.

A private luxury vehicle was kept on standby for 24 hours over three days, driving the ground transport and logistics total to nearly $6000 against a Cabinet-approved budget of $500.

Jones stated he cannot remember the hotel's name or if it had internal access to the venue, but defended the C$4000 SUV hire by stating it transported him to multiple, quickly organised investor meetings that ultimately secured $200 million for New Zealand.

The Department of Internal Affairs refused to release the name of the hotel due to “security considerations”, despite having previously released accommodation details for a separate ministerial trip to Niue.

Resources Minister Shane Jones and the Government are refusing to confirm or deny whether the hotel he stayed in to attend a mining conference in Toronto was in the building right next door to the convention centre where the conference was held.

Stuff revealed last Thursday that Jones had spent $63,000 on the trip to Canada, despite Cabinet only approving a spend of $33,000. It led to the Prime Minister’s office having to retroactively approve the spend, which only happened in February this year.

Stuff has been seeking clarification of where the minister stayed since we broke the story. We’ll explain why below.

The accommodation bill for the trip came in at $13,397.52 for two people for four nights. That works out to $1674.69 a night each.

Documents obtained by Stuff outlining the costs of the trip did not include accommodation receipts.

However, limousine receipts appear to show a pick-up and drop-off location, which matches with the InterContinental Hotel Toronto.

While the receipts don’t include an address - it appears to have been redacted - they do have a postcode of ON M5V 2X3.

Canada's postal system assigns large office towers, shopping centres, or major hotels with their own unique postcodes. ON M5V 2X3 is the postcode assigned to the InterContinental Toronto Centre.

We asked Jones’ office to confirm whether he stayed there, they have not answered.

When we asked Jones directly where he stayed, he said: “I cannot remember the name of the hotel.”

We sent another follow-up email to his office seeking confirmation that the minister stayed at the InterContinental. We did not receive a response by time of publication.

We also sent an email to the prime minister’s office asking for confirmation as his chief of staff had signed off on the extra expense of the trip. They directed us to Ministerial Services at the Department of Internal Affairs.

Here’s why it matters.

Jones had a limo on standby for hours, but if he stayed at the InterContinental, the conference was right next door.

The minerals conference was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The convention centre has a different postcode to the hotel - ON M5V 2W6.

Google Maps estimates it would take three minutes to walk about 200m between the InterContinental Toronto Centre and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Jones noted it was “chilly cold snow blizzard riddled” Toronto when asked why he needed a driver on standby.

However there are questions as to whether the minister needed to experience the chilly temperatures if he stayed in this hotel, as there appears to be internal access between the two buildings.

The website for the convention centre notes that there is “indoor access to the InterContinental Toronto Centre” while a tourism website says the hotel is “attached to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre by a sliding door”.

We asked Jones whether his hotel was connected to the conference centre.

“May very well have been,” he said. “Look, I really can’t recall.”

A private driver was kept on standby for three hours one day, seven hours the next and 14 hours the following day - totalling 24 hours of standby time across three days. The full charge for the limousine service was just under C$4000.

Cabinet had approved a $500 budget for travel on the ground in Toronto, but the final expense for ground travel, roaming and service fees came to $5,959.47.

Stuff has asked for an itinerary of the trip to confirm why the limousine was necessary, but Jones' office was not able to immediately provide it.

“So this SUV, which seated five people, which was used to move me around Toronto in a blizzard, as I recall, took me to multiple meetings in a range of places, not in the hotel or in the site of the meeting,” Jones said.

Stuff was told the limousine made 21 trips, but without an itinerary it wasn’t clear where - or how far - the limo travelled for meetings.

“A number of them were quickly organised because they were meetings of investors, which fortunately, as a consequence of my advocacy, $200 million came to New Zealand,” Jones said.

The Department of Internal Affairs, which takes care of ministerial services, refused to confirm the name of the hotel Jones stayed in due to “security considerations”.

Stuff queried what security needed to be considered given the conference was over a year ago, and pointed out that details of accommodation including the room number Jones had stayed in while in Niue in 2025 had been released. Niue presumably has fewer hotels for ministers to stay at in future, if future security concerns were an issue.

Internal Affairs said that release was inadvertent and maintained its position of not releasing the information due to security concerns and directed our queries to the minister’s office.

On the matter of whether more than $1600 a night was reasonable for accommodation, the minister said accommodation was in high demand.

“Well, the reality is this is a very highly sought after event. Thirty thousand people going to a particular event, and I'm sure that the cost of the hotel rooms would have reflected the competition amongst 30,000 participants,” he said.

We asked whether he’d ever personally spent $1600 on a hotel room. He said “Unlikely.”

Get a grip!

In a slightly unfortunate turn of phrase, given Shane Jones previous indiscretions, Labour leader Chris Hipkins released the following statement this morning.

“Christopher Luxon truly needs to get his cabinet under control. If he’s happy to sign off Shane Jones’ $6000 limo to save Jones walking for three minutes who knows what else he lets Ministers get away with. People are barely getting by at home, the Government should get a grip.”

* Be Shane for a day! WIN your own private limo on standby for a day