Peters Winston: State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3299. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 What is private enterprise when the object is to raid the public enterprise? What is private enterprise about that? The second thing is that the previous speaker Paul Goldsmith knows full well that back in 1998 a party called New Zealand First walked out of a Cabinet and walked out of the second most powerful job in the country as Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer because we would not sell Wellington International Airport. We learnt from our experience. How devious and specious is the National Party when it gives its word on issues like that? So let us have no more humbug like that. The day you do the same thing we will know you have got some grit and courage to stand up for principles. That is our bona fides. What is yours? 
Let us have an obituary first of all. Let us begin with an obituary for the MP for Ohariu. For 28 years Peter Dunne has sat in this House periodically switching sides so as to avoid the winds of change when they occasionally gust through here. His proudest achievements include being the only man in history to lead three political parties to oblivion. But he is also the only politician in the whole wide world to have planked on television. Remember that? That is his fame: 28 years in Parliament and he planked on TV. That is his record. What a plonker! What a plonker! Such was his desperation for relevance at the last election. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Earlier in the debate I was forced to withdraw for using an expression that had been widely used. Much as I am reluctant to defend Peter Dunne I think calling someone a plonker for planking is probably not quite within the Standing Orders. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I think the spirit of the debate was light-hearted—at least that is the way I interpreted it—but we really do not want any offence. That is why we have rules that all members are honourable members and that appropriate nomenclatures and names should be used at all times. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Saved by Mr Key in a desperate exercise in deceit Mr Dunne has one last chance to redeem himself one last chance to represent his electorate and to stand up for the people of New Zealand and one last chance to act for the people of this country not for his own selfish personal egregious self-interest. In case Mr Dunne has forgotten let us remind him. In the last election this is what the United Future party’s website said: “New Zealanders would never—or should never—accept a sell-off of the supply of the water or any of the aspects around it.” That is what he campaigned on and then he used public taxpayer money to do the same on TV in his party’s advertisements and its commercials. You know the last time we checked Mr Dunne power companies had dams. Dams are there to conserve water. Genesis Power Meridian Energy Mighty River Power and Solid Energy all have an interest in the country’s water supply. That is a fact. That is what the promise was and yes for the previous speaker’s sake we do expect members of Parliament to keep their word. That is what he campaigned on. He cannot hide behind semantics now. 
Again I say that he leads the party that said: “New Zealanders would never—or should never—accept a sell-off of the supply of the water or any of the aspects around it.” That unequivocal statement was repeated in United Future’s taxpayer-paid television advertisements. So we challenge the member to dig deep find the courage of his convictions and do what is right for the people of Ohariu and New Zealand. It is his last chance so that he is not disregarded as a footnote from 28 years of doing nothing and remembered for planking. Or does he want to be remembered as the man who at the eleventh hour came to his senses regained his integrity and stopped the sale of critical taxpayer-owned assets? 
Why should we keep them? Well the great English philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke—of course he used to be a paragon of virtue to the conservatives of this country at one time when we had real conservatives and not sell-out merchants—said: “People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” In short people who do not appreciate what happened in the past leave a poor legacy for the posterity of this country and that is what National’s mission is now. Those members should take heed. These words are as relevant today in the 21st century as during Georgian England. 
The dams and power stations that supply this country with electricity were built by men of vision and stamina and across party lines. When Labour and National were running this country decades ago they agreed on these fundamental things being in the hands of New Zealanders. Their hard work and sacrifice must not be forgotten for they believed in something that the members opposite me today do not. They believed in New Zealand. They believed in our collective identity as a nation. They believed in a national purpose. But this is a Government with no sense of history no sense of purpose and no sense of what is right. They are short-term thinkers with no vision or plan to lead the nation into the 21st century and out of the crisis we are in now. 
You know we were told National would lead us to the brighter future. 
Brendan Horan 
: Over in Australia. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes. National was going to lead us to a brighter future. “I am aspirational” says “Mr Spray and Walk Away”; “I believe in the glass being half full.” Of course he is aspirational. Basically what is he in the job for? So it can be on his CV before he swans off back to Hawaii when the going gets tough. 
Brendan Horan 
: With his bodyguards. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: With his bodyguards—oh not bodyguards this time. Oh no you cannot take the bodyguards when you are an ex - Prime Minister. 
You know back then people believed in the collective identity of a nation and national purpose. These members have no such belief. They said they would provide sound economic management. They even said they would stop the exodus to Australia. What a con that was—what a con! And all they have to offer is some half-baked hare-brained scheme that might raise a small amount of capital in the interim but in the long term will leave the country worse off. Every independent economist has said that. Everyone who came before the Finance and Expenditure Committee said that as well. Almost 1500 submissions all said that. 
Andrew Williams 
: And they blocked them. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: And they blocked them. So panicked they got the bill out of the select committee and now they are debating it in Parliament. The parliamentary report-back date for that select committee was 16 July—16 July. Three weeks from now. 
Hon Member 
: They’re efficient. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no. They wanted it out of the way. This sale will lose hundreds of millions of dollars of dividends to the country in respect of retained profits and that is only a conservative estimate. I daresay we can expect the actual figure to be much higher. To think that after 3½ years this is the best National could come up with—the best it could come up with after 3½ years. 
The worst part is that we have been here before as other speakers have said. Look at Telecom. It was sold for $4.25 billion in 1990 and delivered dividends to its foreign owners and its new owners of $15 billion. Nearly $9 billion of that went overseas. 
Andrew Williams 
: Overseas. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes. It was sold for $4.25 billion it delivered $15 billion in dividends and $9 billion of that has already gone offshore and those members think it is a good idea—they think it is a good idea. It is a huge transfer of wealth—like a giant vacuum cleaner—out of this country every year and they talk about a brighter future. I suspect they are doing it because of the financial backers of the National Party. It is why Mr Key spent so much time with the boys from the Macquarie Group. Check out his diary—that is the inside word. That capital as I say could have been reinvested in other New Zealand productive enterprises. 
Another example is BNZ. It was sold for $1.5 billion in 1992. It has transferred to its Aussie owner $13 billion in wealth every year like a giant vacuum cleaner. No matter what we do now we are a standout economy in this context. No other similar economy has so much of its ownership in foreign hands. And we have got a group of people over here who wrap around the national flag at election time but do their utmost for the next 365 days times three to sell the flag down the river. That is their legacy: treachery and treason. They can do and say what they like but those are the facts. 
I will tell you what is going to happen. When the next election is over and the dust has settled we are telling everybody—and I mean this because New Zealand First is notorious for being tough negotiators—that we will take it back at the price we paid. [ 
Interruption 
] Laugh now and cry later. I have seen these members climbing over cut glass to get to New Zealand First. Well here comes part of the price—get that clear now. We do not intend to vacate our responsibility to the New Zealand people just because some temporarily empowered over there have decided that treason treachery and betrayal will be their political mantra.