{"id":140689,"date":"2025-11-18T05:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/140689\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T05:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:41:09","slug":"pm-backs-ministers-pragmatic-call-to-spend-kainga-ora-money-on-local-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/140689\/","title":{"rendered":"PM backs minister\u2019s \u2018pragmatic\u2019 call to spend K\u0101inga Ora money on local bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The money was part of a K\u0101inga Ora Infrastructure Acceleration Funding agreement with Lower Hutt City Council<\/a> designed to support housing developments by upgrading water infrastructure in the city.<\/p>\n

Bishop said shifting the funds was a \u201cpragmatic decision\u201d, driven by the council.<\/p>\n

He said the council came to him after it identified an \u201cunderspend\u201d with the infrastructure money and asked to transfer that to the CityLink Bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually pretty straightforward, the council asked for it, we agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Government had agreed to a similar request Hamilton City Council made last year, asking if money allocated for a cycleway could be put into water infrastructure instead.<\/p>\n

When asked whether he should have recused himself from the Lower Hutt decision, Bishop said it wasn\u2019t unusual to make decisions impacting multiple portfolios and electorates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a conflict there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Manual states ministers should exercise careful judgment about possible conflicts between their constituency interests and their ministerial roles.<\/p>\n

Bishop said the Minister of Finance Nicola Willis<\/a> approved the variation to the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund and he considered this to be an adequate safeguard.<\/p>\n

Hipkins slammed the move<\/a> as a \u201cvery questionable process\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Christopher Luxon (left) said he backed Chris Bishop\u2019s decision as \u201cpragmatic\u201d. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly doesn\u2019t pass the sniff test in terms of having one minister, moving money from one portfolio that he\u2019s responsible for, to another portfolio that he\u2019s responsible for, for a project which he campaigned on in his own electorate, which his Government cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision was signed off by Bishop and Willis.<\/p>\n

Hipkins said the Government shouldn\u2019t be reallocating money away from stormwater upgrades to \u201cprop up\u201d a project it cancelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey basically said as a Government we don\u2019t want walking or cycling bridges, so they are cancelling all of those, and now Chris Bishop is saying \u2018except for the one in my electorate, which I\u2019m going to take money from housing to pay for\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon<\/a> said he backed Bishop\u2019s decision as \u201cpragmatic\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The money was part of a K\u0101inga Ora Infrastructure Acceleration Funding agreement with Lower Hutt City Council designed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32319,1565,3043,22191,42,23543,440,42677,300,43,39995,90,23544,16422,95508,14040,61,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-140689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-backs","tag-bridge","tag-call","tag-ellen","tag-headlines","tag-kinga","tag-local","tag-ministers","tag-money","tag-news","tag-odwyer","tag-on","tag-ora","tag-pm","tag-pragmatic","tag-spend","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}