More pork barrel spending

Newshub reports:

Newshub can reveal Shane Jones signed off on millions of dollars of funding – despite his officials explicitly warning him not to support the projects.
Treasury was even concerned one of the projects may have been overfunded by more than a million dollars. …

It told the Government not to give $5.5 million for the Gisborne Airport revamp, as well as another $6 million for a tourism project at Mt Titirangi.
“I think it’s fair to say that Treasury are paid to be doubting Thomases,” Mr Jones told Newshub. 
At the time he bragged about how many jobs would be created

“Scores and scores of people are gonna be required.”

But Treasury said the Mt Titirangi initiative was unlikely to boost employment.

Not only that – Treasury couldn’t figure out why it needed $6 million.

Emails between Treasury officials raise concerns of “double or even triple dipping going on”.

The emailed response: “They only need $4.75 [million] based on my back of the envelope, not six [million]”.

So Treasury said the project was double and triple dipping, and didn’t even need the six million requested.

Yet they got it anyway.