{"id":447232,"date":"2026-05-27T05:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447232\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T05:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:24:08","slug":"minister-concerned-govts-2-7m-loan-to-super-rugbys-moana-pasifika-might-not-be-recovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447232\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister concerned Govt\u2019s $2.7m loan to Super Rugby\u2019s Moana Pasifika might not be recovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Herald this week reported the franchise had been placed in liquidation<\/a>, as the team headed to Canberra for their final game on Saturday.<\/p>\n

A first liquidator\u2019s report was expected early next week and the team\u2019s debts were likely to heavily outweigh assets. The debts include a Crown loan of $2.75m.<\/p>\n

Mitchell said he hadn\u2019t discussed whether the Government would invest more money or write off the loan. <\/p>\n

Mitchell couldn\u2019t say how likely it was the Government could recover the loan. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019d have to wait for that advice to come back to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Peters \u2013 the Foreign Affairs Minister \u2013 told reporters they would have to wait for \u201cgood news\u201d about the franchise. <\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I\u2019d love to see them carry on, because the reality is they\u2019ve got a great future, but they\u2019ve gone through difficult times.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood Peters was in conversations with people connected to the franchise to explore options. It\u2019s understood no imminent announcement is coming from the Government, which is set to unveil its annual Budget tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Mitchell today said he wasn\u2019t aware what Peters was referring to and hadn\u2019t asked him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure that he will let us know in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters today referred to a \u201cproposal\u201d that was being assessed. He indicated it could be a funding agreement between the Government and private entities. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to find out who else is engaged, who\u2019ll be part of it, and when we get that together, we\u2019ll be able to make an announcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t speculate on the extent of any further Government funding: \u201cIt could be peanuts for a great outcome.\u201d <\/p>\n

Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Herald this week reported the franchise had been placed in liquidation, as the team headed to Canberra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[227969,121793,5195,1558,2068,15245,13687,19724,266,7231,2739,18060,32573,5978,1132,6722,5430,41654,111,139,5006,69,13572,31445,21940,8694,1527,6327,53902,2022,213,313,61,14905,5977,1533],"class_list":["post-447232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-227969","tag-27m","tag-be","tag-been","tag-cant","tag-concerned","tag-franchise","tag-given","tag-government","tag-govts","tag-liquidation","tag-loan","tag-mark","tag-might","tag-million","tag-minister","tag-mitchell","tag-moana","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-pacific","tag-pasifika","tag-placed","tag-recovered","tag-return","tag-rugby","tag-rugbys","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-super","tag-to","tag-whether","tag-which","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447232","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=447232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}