Williams Andrew: State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4895. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the State-owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill which has been brought to the House by the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. New Zealand First of course will be supporting this bill because protecting our State assets and keeping the assets of the Crown in State ownership is certainly a fundamental principle of New Zealand First. 
This country has but a small population somewhere between 4.5 million people and a little bit more than that plus another 1 million New Zealanders living abroad. We have the same geographic area as the UK which has 70 million - odd people. In order to provide the necessary infrastructure for a small population of 4.5 million people this country over many many many decades and the many great people who have gone before us in this House have had the foresight and the inspiration to provide the necessary infrastructure to ensure that what was about 2 million people when I was born and growing up and has now grown to 4.5 million people could have what this country required in terms of reasonably good infrastructure for a First World country—almost on a par with that of our former mother country Great Britain. 
Most of us in this House would be very proud to see the infrastructure this country has developed in the form of our railways our roads our national airline our transmission lines or our national grid our power companies throughout New Zealand our Television New Zealand—the former New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation—Radio New Zealand and many of the other significant entities that make up the framework and the fabric and in fact the backbone of this small country. Without the State backing provided to many of those entities they simply would not have grown to the size that they are today because private enterprise and personal investors simply would not have been able to build up that infrastructure in New Zealand to the point where it is today. So we can be very thankful and very proud of our forebears and those who went before us the many Ministers members of Parliament and people within the bureaucracy local government within New Zealand and all sorts of parts of the framework of government in New Zealand who have helped build up what we have today. 
Therefore this is a very sensible bill. It is sensible to say to this House that unless three-quarters of the people in this House support selling off some of these very very important assets which my grandfather my grandmother your grandfather your great-grandfather your great-great-grandfather and beyond helped build up we should really not be considering doing it. I am reminded of what the Rt Hon Winston Peters pointed out to me a few months ago. He can recall the saying of— 
John Hayes 
: Mike Moore? 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: No Sir Keith Holyoake actually. Thank you. Sir Keith Holyoake had a saying. He used to say that unless at least 60 percent of the people within the House of Representatives would support something he certainly would not ramrod it through. He would not push something through unless he had at least 60 percent support for it. Yet this Government is prepared to do something with a slim 51 percent majority—a paper-thin you know breath of a majority. I like the thought of going back to a situation where three-quarters of the House—75 percent—would make sure that things were protected where if things were to be sold off by far the majority of the House had to have considered it properly and agreed to it. 
This bill also refers to a referendum and again I would support this. It states that should there not be support from 75 percent of the House there should have to be support from a majority of voters in a referendum. Again New Zealand First supports this because if we go to the people in a referendum and they support something of this nature we should be listening to them. 
At the present time the majority of New Zealanders are saying we should not be selling State assets. Most of the polls are showing that 70 or 80 percent think we should not be. This bill brings that in. This a good piece of work. We certainly hope that all parties in this House will give it full consideration. Thank you.