Smith Nick: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9897. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation):I have to take on the economic lunacy that we have just heard from the deputy leader of the Labour Party. Let us first nail him on the facts. He just claimed that only 2.5 percent of New Zealanders now own shares in Mighty River Power. Well let me tell the member this: 14 of the 17 KiwiSaver managers bought shares in Mighty River Power. That is 1.7 million New Zealanders. Why is it that the Labour Party opposes hard-working New Zealanders involved in KiwiSaver being able to own shares? I will tell you why: because it wants a dependency culture. It cannot stand the idea of ordinary New Zealanders investing in their own country.The second point I want to make is this and this is really important: everybody needs to understand that for the New Zealand economy we need to broaden the investment base and we need to broaden it so that we do not invest just in residential property. I have heard Labour speaker after Labour speaker acknowledge that fact about our economy and yet we see them now in an exercise of sabotage against the economic interests of this country. I have been in this Parliament for 24 years and never have I seen an Opposition directly act against the interests of this country such as what I have seen in the last fortnight and it is truly disgraceful.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence at that questioning of our integrity as an Opposition. Whatever the member may feel about the policy in question there can be no question of disloyalty to the country.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no no. This is a robust debate and there was nothing untoward in what the Minister was saying.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: And then I heard the deputy leader of the Labour Party say that the Labour Party is very concerned about power prices. Well how come they went up by 72 percent in the 9 years that you were the Government Mr Robertson? Seventy-two percent—absolutely disgraceful.Here I want to come to the true economic lunacy of Grant Robertson. He said that Labour will base the power price on a fair return on the historic investment—a fair price on the historic investment. Well let us apply that logic to housing. Let us say that I have got a house that was built 30 years ago and cost $4000 to build. What Labour is saying is that you base the rent on it being worth $4000 from all those years ago. Could a housing market possibly work like that? That is what your policy is. That is what these members somehow believe is sensible. It is lunacy.The last point I would make is this: in the 9 years that Labour was in Government there were three occasions on which it had to come to this House because of problems with security of supply. Interestingly last year we actually had a dryer year than any of the last 20 years. What members opposite are being reckless and irresponsible about is in terms of security of supply. I say this to the Committee: there will be absolutely no investment in new generation under this economic lunacy and if we want to compromise the future of New Zealand you go down that track of reducing investment in power. The policy is lunacy. Labour is playing politics. It conducted an act of economic sabotage. Those members should lower their heads in shame.