2020 election: Chris Hipkins questions James Shaw’s version of their conversation

Education Minister Chris Hipkins has challenged claims by Greens co-leader James Shaw that Hipkins gave “verbal approval” to the $ 11.7 million earmarked for the private Taranaki Green School for a school project. building.

Hipkins said today that that would “mischaracterize” his conversation about the school, which is not related to the Green Party.

The claim that Hipkins had verbally signed the controversial grant has been revealed by RNZ in a video it obtained from the Green Party meeting held via Zoom last Friday night.

In it, Shaw tells Green Party members: “Chris [Hipkins] He is not one of the budget ministers, so he was not intimately involved in the decision because he was not going through Voting Education and he would not go through Voting Education because Voting Education does not finance this type of thing.

“He said that, assuming everything else is equal, as long as the financial partner is the [Taranaki District] advice, that is, I agreed with that.

“So he gave at least verbal approval to the project.”

Speaking to reporters at the Manukau Institute of Technology in Otara, Hipkins said that he had been very public about the conversations he had had with Shaw.

“I told him very clearly that it was not a priority for us from an educational perspective and that if it was being considered through a different process, then that was a matter for a different process but I was not involved in that.”

When specifically asked about Shaw’s claim to several hundred Green Party members that Hipkins had given verbal approval, Hipkins said, “No, look, I think that would mischaracterize the conversation.”

A Shaw spokeswoman said she was adamant in her comment on Zoom’s appeal to party members “and continues to feel supported by the caucus and members.”

Meanwhile, the New Plymouth District Council has disputed the claim made by Shaw on Zoom’s call that he was a “partner” in the Green School construction project.

“The minister’s statement is incorrect,” New Plymouth District Council Executive Director Craig Stevenson said in a statement.

“NPDC is not a funding partner for the Green School project and was not involved in the funding request.

“With any development in our district, NPDC’s role is to regulate building and resource permits.”

Shaw told Parliament this week that New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom visited him in his Beehive office on May 18 with the school’s founders and was interested in the government supporting the project.

But Stevenson said: “In terms of the letter of support, the role of the mayor is to advocate for central government investment and that is why he writes dozens of letters of support for multiple groups, businesses and organizations to ensure that Taranaki gets his share. Fair New Zealand Funding Cake “.

National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith said Hipkins and Finance Minister Grant Robertson knew that funding the school was wrong, but had let it happen anyway.

“We are in the biggest economic crisis in a generation … however, this administration is more focused on sharing political victories among government parties than on achieving the best results with limited resources.”

The project was approved as one of the “ready-to-use” projects eligible for part of the $ 3 billion infrastructure fund to aid economic stimulus in the wake of Covid-19.

It was signed by Robertson, Deputy Finance Minister David Parker, New Zealand’s Prime Minister of Infrastructure Shane Jones, and Shaw as Deputy Finance Minister.

The decision has angered Green Party members because the party opposes public funding of private schools and Shaw has widely and profusely apologized for his “error of judgment” on the matter.

The Opposition has also made many more disclosures from an August 7 email from Shaw’s office to the other ministers, obtained by Newshub, saying that Shaw would not sign several other bills until the Green School in Taranaki was added to the list. .

The opposition has said that this amounts to asking the government for a ransom.

There were at least 44 delayed projects with government funding for a total of $ 600 million.