Horan Brendan: Standing Orders — SessionalText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHoran Brendan: Standing Orders — Sessional[Sitting date: 26 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13802. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRENDAN HORAN (Independent):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Talofa. The question today is whether Mighty River Power should be a public organisation. That is a most obvious no-brainer—of course Mighty River Power should be subject to scrutiny. It must be subject to public scrutiny. It cannot be exempt from public scrutiny. The mums and dads who have been led astray by the National Party are deserving of some protection; heaven knows there is none for them in the sharemarket. If you compare the reaction of that Government to the equity of mum and dad investors—and that is the Government’s term its sneering way of referring to the poor people of New Zealand; poor in both senses of the word now. The poor people did their dough in Mighty River Power at $2.50.Compare the reactions of Sam Lotu-Iiga and the Hon Peter Dunne onThe Vote on TV a fortnight ago where they nearly became hysterical over the equity that speculators have in the housing bubble. Those two members attacked the Opposition stridently. They shouted that we were going to destroy the equity that speculators have in their housing portfolios—with 50 100 200 residential properties in their portfolios—and not a word not an ounce of sympathy from Peter Dunne and Sam Lotu-Iiga for the first-home buyers the young families who have no way to accumulate wealth under this Government’s policies nor from anyone else in the National Government.Yet what has happened to the Mighty River Power share price? It has gone down down down faster than a skydiver and there is no parachute. Since listing in mid-May over $400 million of wealth has been destroyed. From an issue price of $2.50 a share in 4 short months it has dropped to $2.23 and just 10 days ago it reached an all-time low of $2.16. Looking at the trend here there is no bottom in sight. Mighty River Power share price fluctuations are on a downward trend. The shares have lost over 13 percent in value over just 4 short months and at this rate mum and dad investors will have lost half their money within the year and will have done their dough totally by mid-2015. Maybe that does not worry Bill English because he is gambling on that being after the next election.John Key is flogging off Mighty River Power and the other State-owned enterprises like the family silver. We have seen a number of questionable manoeuvres from this Government—financial dealings that really are little different fromBridgecorp or Hanover Finance. It moves power stations around between Mighty River Power and Meridian Energy and Genesis like the pea in a three-card shell game. The hard-working folks at theTekapō ATekapō B and Whirinaki power stations could be excused for not knowing who owned each power station on a particular day.With Meridian Energy our next State-owned enterprise to be sold we have seen a $30 million handout to RioTinto. But what is not being told about that story is the absolute incompetence of the Minister for State Owned Enterprises—asleep at thewheel because who could not see RioTinto manoeuvring New Zealand? Fancy that Minister allowing RioTinto to manoeuvre New Zealand into such a vulnerable position. It would be very interesting to have the disinfectant of sunlight looking at the relationship between the heads of Comalco those National Party cronies and the Minister for State Owned Enterprises.We now have Bill English thinking we are very gullible. He is sadly banking on the adage that there is one born every minute. We come along with a “buy now pay later” deal as my colleagues have stressed and steak knives and people get to keep 100 percent of the dividend when they have not actually paid for the shares. But wait there is more. He has set a price cap on the shares so that his few mates who can afford to buy them can get in at a lower price than they should. And let us not forget the $100 million or so paid to Aussie banks just to prepare for the float. The prices that these are going to be sold for represent another subsidy from the hard-working families of New Zealand—the people whose power prices are going to go up and up just to support a few.It is interesting that Bill English ignored Treasury. He ignored Treasury’s advice against it. To Treasury’s credit it did warn Bill English and John Key that the emperor has no clothes. This motion represents a small step to turn back the tide to expose what ongoing mischief there may be from National over this power company which the public built up over 80 years. It used to be the jewel in our crown. It is a public asset of benefit to the public which this Government is selling off.Motion agreed to.