The advisory panel who will help steer the Government's $3 billion regional fund was revealed and met for the first time today.
The eight-person panel features a former army engineer who led a project in Afghanistan and leaders from Southland and Northland.
Jones immediately asked them to look at proposals for a long-discussed redevelopment of Opotiki Harbour.
The panel will provide an extra layer of advice to the bureaucracy and Cabinet on projects funded by the scheme, meeting roughly once a month.
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It features geologist Charlotte Severne, Northland Inc head David Wilson, Infrastructure Advisory Board chair John Rae, former corporate lawyer John Sproat, career public servant Neville Harris, former army engineer and Ports of Auckland sustainability head Rosie Mercer, and Southland regional economic boss Sarah Brown.
The panel is chaired by Rodger Finlay, a former oil and gas businessman now mostly involved in corporate governance, who donated money to Jones' campaign for Labour leader in 2013. Wilson was an NZ First candidate at the last election.
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has already secured $61.7m of the fund for various projects that were already in the works prior to the Government changing.
Jones invited two journalists to the inaugural meeting in Wellington, where he set out wider expectations for the panel and the "fiscal elixir" of the growth fund.
"We expect you not to be a static bunch of gnomes, but people who have made an attempt to engage in the different regions," Jones said.
"I don't envision a system where you are the appendage to the bureaucracy, rather that the bureaucracy is servicing you to ensure that the politicians are getting access to some great minds who have a blend of knowledge about a technical matter, a regional matter, a commercial matter."
He said that while the panel would be broadly accountable he and other ministers would own any fallout from funding decisions gone wrong.
"Feel free to give us your view about the risks that might bite politicians but at the end of the day we're the politicians," Jones said.
The panel were not involved in the first round of funding, which allocated money to a man up on Serious Fraud Office allegations.
Findlay made clear that not every investment was going to pan out perfectly, saying that if at the end of three years there were no mistakes then the fund had not been aggressive enough.
"You can argue quite strongly that we will make mistakes. You could say at the end of initiative if we haven't made mistakes have we actually tried hard enough?" Finlay said.
He said diversification in investment would help protect against major risks.
"This has been an area that one of the officials described to me as the most audacious program since Think Big. And I think it is of that scale."
The unit within Government that previously looked after regional development had an annual budget of around $12m - just over one hundredth of the budget the new unit has.
Panel member Rae said the Government could look to Ireland's regional scheme as a model of regional rejuvenation.
"Ireland has an amazing model around making sure nobody is left behind," Rae said.
"We're the least interventionist country in the world, certainly from the infrastructure space. There has been very little strategic thinking about the role of regions."
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